Abstract:

Impact factor is a major indicator in quality and social influence evaluation of academic journals at home and abroad. Upgrading of the impact indicator involves many factors，of which the most important are the download and citation frequency of published theses. By studying the evaluation mechanism of academic journal articles and analyzing the download and citation frequency of kinds of published theses over the years，we found that download and citation frequency of academic theses are positively correlated，and is closely related to whether thesis topics are closely related with widely concerned social issues. Paper download and citation frequency are also influenced by the titles and abstracts of theses and is related to the ideas of thesis and whether they are well proved with supporting materials，and whether the theses are well written. To upgrade download and citation frequency，efforts need to be made in the following three aspects: selecting contributions of theses about key and hot issues，strengthening editor’s role in guiding the authors to increase quality of their theses，improving the journal editing，focusing on searching and promotion of thesis in order to efficiently lay the foundation for upgrading impact factors of academic journals and to stimulate the internal administration of periodical press.

Key words: impact factor, download frequency, citation frequency, academic journal, quality of journal, social influence