The declining impact of the impact factor
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.010177
The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by Charles Kao for laying the groundwork for fiber optic telecommunication. His breakthrough paper, written in 1966 with George Hockham, appeared in IEE Proceedings, the journal of Britain’s Institution of Electrical Engineers.
The IEE and its proceedings no longer exist. The society merged with the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 2006 to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology . Papers on fiber optics now appear in IET Communications .
I don’t know what IEE Proceedings‘s impact factor was in 1966, but its successor’s impact factor in 2011 is 0.963. In case you’re unfamiliar definition of impact factor, a value of 0.963 means that papers published in IET Communications in 2009–10 were cited in 2011 an average of 0.963 times.
