ISI's Impact Factor Challenges

One of the main criteria in scientometric evaluation of the medical sciences universities is the number of published articles in the journals that have high Impact Factor (IF). The IF is an indicator to evaluate the journals. Many shortcomings of IF were revealed. This review aims to bring out the challenges of IF and the related solutions of them. Required literatures for this review were collected by searching in related databases such as Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, Google Scholar, and also Google search engine as well as SIGMetrics Discussion Group. Determined search strategy limits search to exact phrase and synonyms. Results selected considering relevancy. The review covers the literatures published between 1972- 2007. We found at least 18 shortcomings of IF which reduce the efficacy of this indicator. In addition, they stated some solutions versus the shortcomings; however, there is no suggested resolution for some of the shortcomings. Considering the shortcoming of IF, however it could not be ignored because of its accessibility and ease of use. Solely, IF cannot solve the researcher's problem of qualified journal selection. Such solution needs awareness about IF challenges. Reader's judgments and journal clubs are valuable qualitative ways, which can help IF in the evaluation of journals.