Journal impact measures the importance or influence of a particular journal in a field or discipline and can help you decide which journals you should publish in. Journal impact metrics take into account the number of articles published per time period and the number of citations to articles published in that journal. They can help track citation patterns within journals and determine which journals are highly cited.
There are many factors that influence the impact of a journal and each tool may produce varying results depending on the scope of its database. For a more accurate picture of journal impact, use more than one tool and compare the results.
What is it?
The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) or Impact Factor (IF) ranks journals based on how many times a journal's “average article” is cited in a particular year. The calculation is based on a 2-year citation period, where a journal’s citations are divided by the total number of published citable articles.
The 5-Year Journal Impact Factor calculates over a larger span of years. The 5-year span can be useful for subjects where articles take longer to accumulate citations. A publication’s 5-Year Journal Impact Factor will tend to be higher than its Journal Impact Factor when the wait between publication and peak citation is greater than two years.
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What is it?
The Eigenfactor score measures the importance of a journal. The calculation is based on the number of times, in the past five years, that articles from a journal have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Citations from highly ranked journals are weighted more than citations from poorly ranked journals.
The Article Influence Score measures the average influence of a journal's articles over the first five years after publication. It is calculated by dividing the Eigenfactor by the number of articles published in that journal. The mean Article Influence Score is 1.00; a score greater than 1.00 indicates that articles in a journal have above-average influence.
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What is it?
CiteScore is a metric for measuring journal impact in Scopus and is based on the average citations received per document. CiteScore calculates the number of citations received by a journal in one year to documents published in the three previous years, divided by the number or documents indexed in Scopus published in those same three years. It shows how highly cited the average article in a journal is relative to others in its discipline.
CiteScore metrics are a collection of research metrics available through Scopus, including:
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What is it?
The Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) weights citations based on the total number of citations in a given subject field, which allows you to compare journals across subjects. The impact of a single citation is given a higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa. SNIP is based on Scopus citation data and has a 3-year citation window.
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What is it?
The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) measures the influence of a journal, taking into account the number of citations received and the importance or prestige of the journal. The SJR normalizes for differences in citation behavior between subject fields. With SJR, the subject field, quality, and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation.
Citations are weighted – worth more or less – depending on the source they come from. The subject field, quality and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation.
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What is it?
Google Scholar Metrics includes a list of the top 100 publications based on citations within Google Scholar for particular subject fields using their h5-index and h5-median. You can look at top journals in particular subject categories and sub-categories.
The Google Scholar h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2014-2018 have at least h citations each.
The h5-median for a publication is the median number of citations for articles that make up its h5-index.
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Many scholars believe traditional metrics do not give the whole picture of research impact, especially in fields outside the sciences. Altmetrics use a range of measurements to show research impact. They measure both impact on a field or discipline and impact on society. They "expand our view of what impact looks like, but also of what’s making the impact. This matters because expressions of scholarship are becoming more diverse."
Altmetrics can be useful for early-career researchers or new publications that need time to gain citation counts. They also account for other types of publications, such as datasets, code, or blogging.
This list is not exhaustive, and many more Altmetrics resources can be found on the Metrics Toolkit website.
What is it?
The Journal Acceptance Rate is the percentage of manuscripts accepted for publication, compared to all manuscripts submitted. It applies to journal articles, typically in peer-reviewed publications only.
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This metric can be found in all products offered by Altmetric, including the free researcher bookmarklet and on many journal publisher websites and repositories (such as Figshare).
Information and definitions of metrics in this section by Metrics Toolkit. It is licensed under CC-BY 4.0
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