Background and objective: Several
publications are warning that the German language is no longer needed
for transmission of scientific data. One of the causes may be the
Impact Factor (IF), which appears to be derived predominantly from
Anglo-American journals. The aim of this study was to check actual
international attention paid to German- language journals, i. e. their
citation frequencies in English-language papers. Are these citing
rates in English-language articles correlated to the IF, and from
where do citing articles originate?
Methods: Of 25 arbitrarily selected > 85 % German-language medical
journals, IF as well as language distributions of citing articles
were determined by searching publication years 1995-2000
in Science Citation Index (SCI). MEDLINE and EMBASE were used as
supplementary retrieval systems.
Results: (i) The sample journals displayed
an average IF = 0.357. A 99 % correlation
(Pearson factor r = 0.987;
n = 25) was observed between our ” constructed
” IF 2000 and IF
published in Journal Citation Report 2000. This proves Stegmann’s
IF determination method (31) to be valid. On the average, 53 % German-language and
45 % English-language articles between 1995-2000
cited the 1995-1999’ contributions of the studied
journals. No correlation was observed between IF vs. rates
of citing articles in English (r < 0.1).
64 % of citing English-language articles showed corporate
sources in Germany/ Austria/ Switzerland, and
13.5 % authors’ institutions in USA.
Conclusions: (i) An IF 1 is, obviously,
very hard to attain by German-language journals. ISI’s
differentiation between Citing vs. Cited-only
Journals (the latter often serving as MEDLINE/ EMBASE
sources) during derivation of IF appears unjustified. (ii) English
now serves as the predominant communication language in sciences
in German-speaking countries, but has not supplanted the German
language. Our study reveals remarkable international attention rates
remaining.
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correspondence
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil Harald G Schweim
Commissioned Director (until May 2002), Deutsches Institut für Medizinische Dokumentation
und Information - DIMDI, 50899 Cologne
President, Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices - BfArM
Kurt-Georg-Kiesinger Allee 3
53175 Bonn, Germany
Telefon: +49/228/207 3203/3204
Fax: +49/228/207 5514
eMail: schweim@bfarm.de
