Research Publishing & Impact: Journal Metrics

Journal Impact Factor (JIF or IF) is a term from Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thomson Reuters and ISI.

= average number of times articles from a journal, published in the last 2 years, have been cited in the JCR year                    

5 year JIF calculation is also available.

2023 Journal Impact Factor (JIF) data - available from 20 June 2024

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Incites is available to compare journal metrics across a range of years, e.g. Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Journal Citation Indicator (JCI), Journal ranking by Subject category...

This well known journal metric uses citation data from the Web of Science Core Collection. Use it for the latest JIF data.

Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) is the average Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) of citable items (articles & reviews) published by a journal over a recent three year period. Only available through Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

Researchers are often encouraged to publish in, and read, journals with high impact factors, to enhance their research profile and awareness.

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h-index

The journal h-index measures a journal’s impact based on the number of citations to it.

The h-index is the number of papers (N) with at least N citations each. For example, a journal with an h-index of 9 has at least nine published papers, each of which has been cited at least nine times.

Two key factors may impact on a journal h-index:

1. The journals indexed by the database - journals not indexed by the database will not be included in the h-index; no database indexes every journal. Search by journal title, including subtitles, and journal abbreviations.

2. The date range over which the journal history h-index is being measured; long standing journals will likely have a higher h-index.

Web of Science and SJR are the main source databases for h-index information for journals used by scientists.

Publish or Perish - merge this data with that from Web of Science and SJR, then remove duplicate results.

The h-index is not widely used outside the Sciences. At Otago, Humanities scholars are advised not to use the h-index. Citation counts do not necessarily reflect research impact in the Humanities. Social Science scholars may find the journal h-index useful when selecting where to publish.

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SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) demonstrates journal rankings or prestige, based on Scopus data. SJR normalises for differences in citation behaviour between different subjects. Subject field, quality, and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation.

= average number of citations per document by total journal citations within a 3-year period, in a subject category, while assigning higher value to citations from more prestigious journals.

Note: The SJR may change for current and previous years when extra journal content is added to Scopus.

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Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) shows how well cited an article is, when compared to similar articles in the same discipline, publication year or output type. FWCI takes into account the differences in research behaviour across disciplines. It is particularly valuable for cross-disciplinary research. Citations received up to 3 complete calendar years after publication are considered.

If the FWCI = 1, the output performs just as expected for the global average; if the FWCI = 1.48, it means 48% more cited than expected.

Find the FWCI using Scopus at article level; and SciVal (updated weekly from Scopus data) at author, institution and regional level.

Learn more:  

Research Metrics Guidebook - see p46-48.

What is Field Weighted Citation Impact? - tutorial

Category Normalised Citation Impact (CNCI) uses the actual count of citing items, divided by the expected citation rate for documents with the same document type, year of publication and subject area. When a document is assigned to more than one subject area an average of the ratios of the actual to expected citations is used.

If the CNCI = 1, this represents performance at par with world average. A CNCI value of 2 is considered twice world average.

Find the CNCI and JNCI (Journal Normalised Citation Impact) using Incites, from Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thomson Reuters and ISI. This metric is useful for benchmarking at author, institutional or regional level.

Learn more:  

Incites Indicators Handbook - see p13-15

About InCites Data: Understanding the Metrics 

Complementary Indicators - consider using:

• FWCI by Subject area/s
• Outputs in top citation percentiles
• Publications in top journal percentiles
• International collaboration
• % of Articles in the top 1% (or 10%) of journals
• Documents in Q1 indicators (# or %)
• Highly cited papers or Hot papers

Eigenfactor Score (EF) - a measure of a journal's importance to the scientific community, based on past 5 years' data from Clarivate; available for 1997-2015. A journal's Scores are scaled so that the sum of all journal scores is 100.  

• Intended to reflect the influence and prestige of journals.  
• Considers which journals have contributed to these citations so that highly cited journals, and those with lots of articles, will influence the network more than lesser cited, or smaller journals.
• References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation. 
• Like the Journal Impact Factor but with weighting for high cites. Metrics are currently available up to JCR 2015 data.

Normalised Eigenfactor Score (EFn) - scaled so that the journal’s mean score = 1.00.  A journal with a Normalized Eigenfactor Score of 3 has three times the total influence of the average journal in the JCR. In 2014, PLoS One had the highest EFn Score of 217.451.

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Article Influence Score: The mean Article Influence Score is 1.00.  An Article Influence Score greater than 1.00 indicates that the articles in a journal have an above-average influence.

• Measures the average influence, per article, of the papers published in a journal.  
• Determines the average influence of a journal’s articles over the first five years after publication =               

See Citation Metrics: Alternative Metrics as it applies to journals.

Limitations

Obvious factors can heavily influence journal impact factors, such as journal title changes, or publishers gaming the system by requiring authors to cite articles from other journals by the same publisher.  However there are more systematic problems:

• Journals with review articles have higher impact factors (more people read and cite these).
• Impact factors can be biased estimates because non-articles increase a journal’s impact factor, e.g. letter to the editor.
• Wide variations between different research fields inherent to the different patterns of publication in those fields.
• Differences in journal metric terms used by different companies, e.g. Journal Impact Factor v. CiteScore.
• Scopus indexes nearly twice as many journals as Web of Science so some metrics will differ, e.g. journal h-index.
• Different subject categories of journals are used so comparison of ranking metrics is fraught.
• A journal’s impact factor is no indication of how heavily a specific article within has been used.
• Increased metrics when a journal publishes more issues per year, and more articles in one issue.
• Higher impact journals tend to have higher retraction frequencies - check the Retraction Watch database.

Journal Citation Reports™ (JCR) provides you with the transparent, publisher-neutral data and statistics you need to make confident decisions in today’s evolving scholarly publishing landscape, whether you’re submitting your first manuscript or managing a portfolio of thousands of publications.

Quickly understand a journal’s role within and influence upon the global research community by exploring a rich array of citation metrics, including the Journal Impact Factor™ (JIF), alongside descriptive data about a journal’s open access content and contributing authors.

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SciVal (Elsevier) offers quick, easy access to the research performance of over 10,000 research institutions and over 200 countries worldwide. SciVal enables you to navigate the world of research and devise an optimal plan to drive and analyse your performance.

Contact your Subject Librarian for assistance with SciVal. 

View the SciVal Usage and Patent Metrics Guidebook (SciVal login required) - access via the Help menu

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Note: Publish or Perish version 8 is available as a native macOS application.

• Comprehensive coverage for journals in the sciences and medical sciences
• Primarily English-language, North American journals
• Excludes Journal self citations
• Useful for disciplines with a longer timeframe for citations to be generated.