The editors of the Journal of Biological Chemistry have criticized the modern reliance upon the impact factor for ranking journals, noting that review articles, commentaries, and retractions are included in the calculation. Further, the denominator of total articles published encourages journals to be overly selective in what they publish, and preferentially publish articles which will receive more attention and citations.[5]
Due to these factors, the journal's practice of publishing a broad cross-section of biochemistry articles has led it to suffer in impact factor, in 2006 ranking 260 of 6,164, while remaining a highly cited journal.[6] When science journals were evaluated with a PageRank-based algorithm, however, the Journal of Biological Chemistry ranked first.[7] Using the Eigenfactor metric, the Journal of Biological Chemistry ranked 5th among all ISI-indexed journals in 2010.[8] The impact factor of the journal in 2021 was 5.486.[9]
The most cited paper of all time[12][13][14] was published in the journal by Oliver H. LowryonProtein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent[15] and describes the Lowry protein assay, and has been cited well-over 300,000 times.[12] In 1990, librarian Eugene Garfield wrote that the "Journal of Biological Chemistry lead the list of journals ranked by the number of SCI Top papers published", with 17 of the top 100 most cited papers published.[14] The next journals on the list were Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with 6, then Nature, with 5.[14]
The journal is very active on social media. In March, the journal hosts "Methods Madness," a tournament styled after March Madness. The event takes place on Twitter and lets users vote for their favorite biochemistry or molecular biology methods.[16]
^Hascall, Vincent C.; Hanson, Richard W. (August 20, 2007). "JBC on Journal Ranking". Notably, The Annual Review of Immunology had the highest Impact Factor score in 2005 with The Annual Review of Biochemistry rating second. This raises the question of whether citations in reviews should, in fact, be included in the data base used to calculate Impact Factors.... High Impact Factor journals, such as Science and Nature, publish letters, commentaries, and even retractions, all of which have citations that are included in the numerator without inclusion of their number in the denominator of the Impact Factor.
^Hascall, Vincent C.; Hanson, Richard W. (August 20, 2007). "JBC on Journal Ranking". As a result of this policy, the Journal has grown over the past 20 years in parallel with the growth of research in the biological sciences, to the point that today it is the world's largest and most cited journal. This is not, however, necessarily a good thing for the presumed status of the Journal; it may be highly cited, but in 2006 it ranked only 260 among the 6,164 scientific journals evaluated by Impact Factor metrics.
)
Biology
