Abstract

The study investigated the citation indicators and the citation analysis data developed in the KoMCI(Korean Medical Citation Index) project. With the full understanding of the current level of citation rates of Korean medical journals by Korean medical journals. and of the characteristics and problems associated with the KoMCI citation indicators, it is possible to further develop or modify citation indicators which will better represent the citation patterns of Korean medical journals. The highest impact factor reported in the KoMCI 2000 : Korean Medical Journal Citation Reports, which covered 69 Korean medical journals published in 2000 is 0.424 and the average is 0.182. It is because only 8.5% of references cited in Korean medical journal articles is to the Korean journal articles, The journal self-citation rates are very high (usually higher than 50%) due to the fact that there are only a few Korean journals published in the same subject area. The KoMCI impact factors of two Korean SCI journals for which SCI JCR reported the SCI 2000 impact factors are about 1/3 of the SCI impact factors. It is because SCI is based on the citations received from 5,900 journals whereas KoMCI is from 69 journals.