ABSTRACT. The theory that I shall seek to elaborate here puts considerable emphasis on the effects of self-citation on enhancing the journals’ IF, the challenges of quantifying scientific value, and distortions in the evaluation of scientific research. The overall results provide strong evidence for the effect of time on citation rates, the JIF as a proxy for the quality and importance of research pub¬lications, and the input value for scientific productivity. pp. 164–169

Keywords: JIF, scientific value, citation, academic journal