Impact Factor and the Dangers of Gamifying Scholarship

The debate on the use and abuse of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been on for decades. Some JIF crusaders think it should be used for the assessment of journal quality, article quality and author competence while opponents of this broad application insist that impact factor should be restricted to the assessment of journal credibility and never for article or author assessment. However, some institutions continue with the contentious practice of using JIF and associated metrics to determine employee promotion, hiring and funding, thereby provoking controversies and bitter contentions in academic institutions. This paper focuses on the merits of alternative metrics that accommodate the interest of various disciplines and respect their peculiar circumstances with a view to developing more realistic and less contentious metrics that measure only what they are designed to measure. It highlights the importance of Altmetrics as a useful addition and Impact Factor Distribution as a useful alternative to impact factor.