impact factor
Noun
Meaning
impact factor (plural impact factors)
A measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in an academic journal, used as an approximation of the relative importance of a journal within its field.
Examples
It is common, and encouraged by many journals, for research to be judged by the impact factor of the journal that publishes it. But as a journal's score is an average, it says little about the quality of any individual piece of research.
Let us think of standards as a way to move from publication to innovation, to move from trying to increase a meaningless impact factor to actually having an impact and fostering new ideas that people can build upon.