Una riflessione sugli strumenti bibliometrici per la valutazione della ricerca e una proposta: il real impact factor

The recent exercise of Evaluation of Quality and Research boosted by the Italian Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research has reopened reflections on the evaluation methods, including the bibliometric ones. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact factor as the main instrument of bibliometric evaluation, "old" in the field of natural and technological sciences but recently introduced by Law and by the Agency also for business and economic disciplines (Bonaccorsi, 2012). The reflections proposed come to the conclusion that the impact factor is not suitable and then it is proposed a new indicator capable of taking into account the usefulness for all users (both primary and secondary): the real impact factor.