Journal Impact Indicators
What
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Journal impact indicators measure a journal's impact. This is usually based on a combination of citations accumulated to articles published in the journal over a period of years and the number of citable articles published by the journal during that time. Journal impact metrics are released yearly based on data from preceding years.
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Key indicators include:
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) published by Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters).
- SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) published by SCImago and Elsevier using data from Scopus.
- CiteScore published by Elsevier using data from Scopus (introduced in late 2016).
Why
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To demonstrate the prestige and impact of a journal and to rank journals.
Applications
- Academic promotions, grant applications, resumes, and developing a publishing plan (researchers)
- When evaluating a journal purchase or subscription (libraries)
Considerations
- Journal impact metrics represent the 'citedness' (the level at which content is cited, quoted or mentioned) of a journal and don't necessarily indicate the quality or impact of an individual article published within that journal.
- Journal impact metrics are produced using different datasets and methodologies. Each indicator may place or rank a journal differently.
- Metrics are only provided for journals within a particular source - not every journal will be indexed in every source.
- Metrics are updated every year.
Common tools
- Journal Citation Reports
- SCIMago Journal Rank
- https://www.scopus.com/sources - CiteScore
How to find journal impact metrics:
1. Journal Citation Reports - Finding a journal's impact factor
- Access Journal Citation Reports from the Library website.
- Locate the Master Search Box in the top left hand corner, and begin typing the name of the journal.
- Select the journal from the suggestions drop down menu.
- The Journal Impact Factor can be found in the Key Indicators table.
- Metrics for each year that the journal has been included in the Web of Science Core Collection database will be available, along with a range of Impact Factor variations.
Myth: Using the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as a metric for articles or authors. While the JIF may be helpful for evaluating the influence of journals within a particular subject area, it should not be used to measure the quality of an individual article or the impact of a researcher. It has been used this way in the past, but bibliometrics experts discourage it and recommend more appropriate article and author-level metrics.
2. SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) - Finding a journal's SJR
- Access the SCImago Journal and Country Rank website at http://www.scimagojr.com/
- Enter the journal title, ISSN, or publisher name in the search box and hit enter.
- Click on the title of the correct journal in the results list.
- The SJR can be found in the SJR graph box - hover your mouse over the graph to see the SJR value for each year.
- Additional journal metrics, such as journal H-Index, quartile rank within categories, and citing information is also available.
3. CiteScore - Finding a journal's CiteScore
- Access the website https://www.scopus.com/sources
- Locate the Search Titles box, or use any of the filters to reduce the list of journals.
- The current CiteScore is available from the results list record for each journal, in the first column to the right of the journal title.
- Click on the journal title for more information including historical CiteScores, trends, and the CiteScore tracker.