Journal-level bibliometrics
Journal-level bibliometrics use citations to measure the impact a journal has in the scholarly community.
Journal-level bibliometrics can be used to help an author decide where to publish and to help librarians decide which journals to subscribe to.
Self-citations and differences in citation patterns across disciplines article types are limitations associated with journal-level bibliometrics. For example, review articles are cited at higher rates than original research articles. Consequently, journals that exclusively publish review articles have much higher journal metrics than journals that publish original research articles.
Scholarly Impact can help create reports and visualizations using bibliometrics to compare journals. Please contact us for assistance.
Impact Factor
Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the most widely used journal-level bibliometric. It is a proprietary metric calculated by Journal Citation Reports (JCR) using citation data indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection.
From JCR: "It [JIF] should be used with careful attention to the many factors that influence citation rates, such as the volume of publication and citations characteristics of the subject area and type of journal. The Journal Impact Factor can complement expert opinion and informed peer review. In the case of academic evaluation for tenure, it is inappropriate to use a journal-level metric as a proxy measure for individual researchers, institutions, or articles."
JIF is defined as all citations to the journal in the current JCR year to items published in the previous two years, divided by the total number of scholarly items (these comprise articles, reviews, and proceedings papers) published in the journal in the previous two years. Though not a strict mathematical average, the Journal Impact Factor provides a functional approximation of the mean citation rate per citable item. A Journal Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two years ago have been cited two and a half times.
- Journal Citation Reports or JCR Web This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive resource for journal evaluation, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) uses citation references culled from over 7,600 scholarly and technical journals worldwide and includes all specialties in the areas of science, technology, and social sciences. Data reveals the highest impact journals, most frequently used journals, hottest journals, and largest journals. See the Web of Science .
Determining a Journal's Impact
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowScopus provides three metrics for journals: CiteScore, SJR, and SNIP. Click on "Sources" and search by publisher, title, ISSN, or subject, then click on the journal title to see the source details and metrics. Use the "Compare Sources" option to compare the metrics of up to 10 journals.
- Journal Citation Reports or JCR Web This link opens in a new windowThe official source for Journal Impact Factors™, based on the Web of Science Core Collection. You must create a Web of Science account in order to search JCR.
- SciVal This link opens in a new windowNOTE: All users need to register with a username and password.
A web-based analytics solution that provides comprehensive access to the research performance of over 14,000 research institutions and their associated researchers from 230 nations worldwide, SciVal allows users to visualize research performance, benchmark relative to peers, develop strategic partnerships, and identify and analyze new, emerging research trends, and create uniquely tailored reports.
- Using JCRsA guide developed by UI's Hardin Library for using JCRs.
- Scimago Journal Rank (SJR)This tool uses Scopus journal information to allow users to search and analyze journal and country rankings.
- EigenfactorScientific journals are rated by the number of incoming citations, where citations from more highly ranked journals make a greater contribution to the eigenfactor than citations from more poorly ranked journals. The score was developed at the University of Washington by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom.
- Google Scholar MetricsExplore publications by subcategories. Journals are ordered by their five-year-h-index and h-median metrics.
- Top 100 PublicationsAccording to Google Scholar Metrics.
- Harzing's Publish or PerishThe software program uses Google Scholar to retrieve and analyze academic citations to present statistics on citations, journal metrics, and author metrics.
- CWTS Journal IndicatorsProvides free access to bibliometric indicators on scientific journals.