Citation Metrics Workshop

The key journal metric (also known as journal impact factor) is based on the # number of articles published in a given journal, and numbers of times articles have been cited over time (e.g., 2 years). Some metrics aim to account for other aspects of citations, including:

• disciplinary differences in citation patterns
• the prestige of the journal in which the citing article appears

For a description of how it is possible to game journal metrics, see Editors’ JIF-boosting stratagems – Which are appropriate and which not?

Acceptance and circulation rates are not available for every journal, but can be useful metrics in determining the relative importance of particular journals.

• American Psychological Association Journals - acceptance rates for all APA journals.
• MLA Directory of Publications - acceptance and circulation rates for many journals indexed by the Modern Languages Association (literature, film, theatre, etc.)  are included in the "Submission Details".
• Ulrichsweb - acceptance and circulation rates are available for some of the  journals listed in this comprehensive directory.
• Journal/Publisher websites - often include acceptance rates

Thomson Reuters' Journal Citation Reports (JCR®) provides the Journal Impact Factor, the best known journal metric.

Connect: Journal Citation Reports

Source data: Journal Citation Reports provides the impact factor, immediacy index, Eigenfactor metrics, and other citation data for approximately 12,000 scholarly and technical journals and conference proceedings from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index in the Web of Science Core Collection. Journals listed exclusively in Arts and Humanities Citation Index are not included.

Metrics include:

• Journal Impact Factor, calculated on the average number of citations received per paper published in that journal during the three preceding years.
• Immediacy index, based on the number of times articles published in the preceding year were cited in that year.
• Eigenfactor® Score, based on the number of citations received by articles in a journal, weighted by the rank of the journals the citations appear in. 
• Article Influence® Score, a measure of the average influence of each of its articles over the first five years after publication.

Also available:  ranked lists of journals in Subject Categories (e.g. History, Forestry, Pathology), based on journal impact factor.

 Thompson Reuters provides excellent training videos and documentation .

Connect: Freely available here.

Source database: more than 22,000 journal and book series titles from Scopus/SciVal

Metrics include: 

• CiteScore, based on the average citations received per document. It is calculated on the number of citations received by a journal in one year to documents published in the three previous years, divided by the number of documents indexed in Scopus published in those same three years.

Search by journal or book series title, subject area, publisher.

Connect: SCImago Journal and Country Rank: Journal Rankings

Source data: Scopus/SciVal

Metrics include:

• SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) is calculated in an iterative process based on the number of citations to a journal and the rank of the journals in which the citations appear. Methodological details here.
• Hirsh's h-index

Also available: lists of journals, in broad or narrower subject areas, ranked by SJR, H-Index, total cites, etc.

Connect: Google Scholar Citations

Source data: Citations present in Google Scholar from a five year period ending one year ago. For example, in August, 2015, Google Scholar Citations includes citations from articles published between 2010 and 2014.  More details.

Metrics include:

• h5-index 
• h5-median

See Google Scholar Metrics for definitions.

Also available: ranked lists of Top 100 Publications for journals published in a number of languages including English, French  and Chinese.  For English-language publications, additional Top 100 Publications lists are available for broad disciplines (e.g. Social Science), and for subcategories of the broad disciplines, e.g. Family Studies.

Connect: http://www.eigenfactor.org/projects/journalRank/journalsearch.php

Source data: from Web of Science, with a 6 month delay

Metrics include: 

• Eigenfactor® Score (EF), based on the number of citations received by articles in a journal, weighted by the rank of the journals in which the citations appear, calculated over the previous 5 years.
• Article Influence® Score (AI), a measure of the average influence of each of its articles over the first five years after publication.

Methodological details here.

(Note that both EF and AI scores are available in Journal Citation Reports, calculated over the previous 3 years.)

Also available: ranked lists of journals in the same Field Categories as Journal Citation Reports (e.g. History, Forestry, Pathology), based on Eigenfactor® Score. 

More information: About Eigenfactor

Connect here.

Source database: Scopus/SciVal

Metrics include:

• IPP (Impact per publication). Similar to the Journal Impact Factor. 
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Publication). Corrects for disciplinary differences in citation practices, so journals in different disciplines can be compared. Methodological details here.