Research Impact

Journals within a specific discipline are often ranked according to their influence and impact. Citations and metrics are the two key elements in current journal ranking schemes. Metrics are calculated from citation data.

The key journal level metrics used for journal ranking are detailed below.

Journals can also be ranked by four quartiles, for example

• Q1 - the top 25% of journals in the journal list of a subject category 
• Q2 -  journals in the 25 to 50% group

Find quartile rankings in Scopus and SCImago.

CiteScore is a journal metric created by Scopus in 2016. 

CiteScore is based on the number of citations received to documents (articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and data papers) by a journal over four years, divided by the number of the same document types indexed in Scopus and published in those same four years.

On each journal's CiteScore page, you will find the CitatSocre (the current CiteScore year is 2021), CiteScore Tracker 2022 (monthly update for the current year) and CiteScore rank and percentile. 

Find CiteScore

• Go to Scopus > click Sources > search for a journal > find CiteScore on the journal page

Lower CiteScore than Impact Factor?

• CiteScore includes all document types in the calculation, whereas the Journal Impact Factor calculates only “citable items”, such as articles and reviews. This is why CiteScore is usually lower than Impact factor. However, it is not necessary to compare two different metrics by their numbers.

Compare journals in Scopus

Go to  Compare Journals on Scopus, you can compare up to 10 journals using a variety of parameters including CiteScore, SJR and SNIP

• Watch an online tutorial to learn more about this tool

SJR is a prestige metric weighted by the prestige of a journal. Citations are weighted depending on where they come from. The number of citations received and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from are used for measuring the influence of the journal. A citation from a high SJR journal has more value than a citation from a lower SJR journal.

Subject field, quality and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation. SJR normalises differences of citation behaviour in different subjects.

• SJR uses Scopus' citation data in its calculations
• Calculation of SNIP & SJR - a video tutorial by Elsevier

Find SJR metrics

• from SCImago website. SCImago also provides journal ranking information by subjects and countries
• from Scopus - click Sources > search a journal title > find SJR on the journal record

SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. SNIP is the ratio of a source's average citation count per paper, and the 'citation potential' of its subject field. It aims to allow direct comparison of sources in different subject fields.

Find additional information on the CWTS Journal Indicators website:

• Go to Indicators page, select your research subject to find a list of journals ranked by SNIP 
• CWTS indicators are calculated based on the sources indexed by Scopus 

Find SNIP metrics

• from SCImago website. SCImago also provides journal ranking information by subjects and countries
• from Scopus - click Sources > search a journal title > find SJR on the journal record

Journal impact factor (JIF) or Impact factor (IF) is a widely quoted journal metric.

• Impact factor is calculated in a two year window
• The latest JIF year is 2020
• An impact factor in 2020 is calculated as:

Find JIF metrics

Journals indexed by Web of Science may provide JIF details on their websites. 
The IEEE database also provides JIF metrics for applicable journals.

The Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) is a new metric created by Clarivate.

JCI is the average Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) of citable items (articles & reviews) published by a journal over a recent three year period. The average JCI in a category is 1. A journal with a JCI 1.5 means that this journal has 50% more citation impact than the average in the same category.

The h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h that h articles published in last 5 years have been citated at least h times.

h5-median of a publication - the median number of citations for the articles that make up its h5-index.

For more information see Google Scholar Metrics

Eigenfactor

• The key scores used by Eigenfactor are Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score. Both use 5 year citation data and the whole citation network to account the citation differences across disciplines. The scores are better used for some research areas that articles are not frequently cited until several years after publication.
• Eigenfactor is the measure of the journal's total importance to the scientific community.
• An Article influence score greater than 1.00 indicates that the articles in a journal have an above-average influence in the journal's subject category.
• Each journal belongs to only one category
• Eigenfactor metrics are freely available and are also included in the Journal Citation Reports database

Search to find a journal's Eigenfactor