Research Impact

There are numerous journal metrics that can be used to highlight journal impact. This guide will explore the following journal metrics:

• Journal Impact Factor,
• Eigenfactor Score,
• CiteScore,
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), 
• Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and 

Journal metrics can be used as part of the evaluation when measuring a researcher's scholarly impact. However, if the journal impact score for a specific journal is high, the assumption cannot be made that all research published in the journal is of high quality. In order to measure the research impact of a scholar, a number of quantitative and qualitative metrics should be used.

• The most popular journal metric is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and the JIF is found in the Journal Citation Reports published by Clarivate Analytics. Clarivate provides the following definition for JIF. "The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a ratio which divides a journal’s received citations by a count of its published articles." Click on the Clarivate link to learn how the JIF is calculated.
• The Journal Citation Reports on the Journal Profile page provides the following information about the JIF. "The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a journal-level metric calculated from data indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. It 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."

• Access Journal Citation Reports.
• In the Journal Citation Reports search box type the name of the journal you are interested in.
• If there is a match in the database click on the journal title in order to review its profile.
• Scroll down the journal profile page to find the journal impact factor. Click on View Calculation is you want to see  how the journal impact factor was calculated.
• Continue scrolling down the journal profile page to view other metrics and data visulatizations.

• Clarivate provides the following information about the Eigenfactor Score. "The Eigenfactor calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser journals. References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactors are not influenced by journal self-citation."
• If you want to learn how the Eigenfactor Score is calculated go to the Clarivate information page.
• The Eigenfactor Score is published in the Journal Citation Reports.

• Access Journal Citation Reports.
• In the Journal Citation Reports search box type the name of the journal you are interested in.
• If there is a match in the database click on the journal title in order to review its profile.
• Scroll down the journal profile page. Under the Additional Metric heading you will find the Eigenfactor Score.

• CiteScore is a metric used by the Scopus database to calculate a journal's impact.
• Elsevier provides the following information about CiteScore. "CiteScore 2021 is based on the number of citations received in 2018-2021 to 5 peer-reviewed document types (articles, reviews, conference papers, data papers, and book chapters) by a journal in the same four years, divided by the number peer-reviewed documents indexed in Scopus and published in those same four years."

• Access the Scopus database.
• On the Scopus Start exploring web page click on the Sources link.
• On the Source web page select a journal title of your choice.
• Lastly, you will be on the Source details page for the selected journal title and the CiteScore will be displayed.
• Scroll down the web page to view additional information about journal level metrics.
• View the short video by Elsevier entitled "CiteScore Metric in Scopus" to learn more information about the CiteScore metric.

• The SJR is calculated by the Scimago Institute in Spain using the data from the Scopus database.
• Elsevier provides the following information about SJR. "SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited, and as such is conceptually similar to the Impact Factor. A major difference is that instead of each citation being counted as one, as with the Impact Factor, the SCImago Journal Rank assigns each citation a value greater or less than 1.00 based on the rank of the citing journal. The weighting is calculated using a three-year window of measurement and uses the Scopus database. Authors can use these metrics when deciding where to publish."

• Access the Scopus database.
• On the Scopus Start exploring web page click on the Sources link.
• On the Source web page select a journal title of your choice.
• Lastly, you will be on the Source details page for the selected journal title and the SJR metric will be displayed.
• View the short video by Elsevier entitled "Viewing Metrics on Source Pages" to learn more information about the SJR metric.

• SNIP is calculated by the CWTS of Leiden University using the data from the Scopus database.
• Elsevier provides the following information about SNIP. "Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. This unique perspective enables direct comparison of sources in different subject fields. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa."

• Access the Scopus database.
• On the Scopus Start exploring web page click on the Sources link.
• On the Source web page select a journal title of your choice.
• Lastly, you will be on the Source details page for the selected journal title and the SNIP metric will be displayed.
• View the short video by Elsevier entitled "Viewing Metrics on Source Pages" to learn more information about the SNIP metric.

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