What are Journal Metrics?
Knowing the impact and importance of a journal can help you decide where to submit your articles. Citation tracking databases like Scopus or the Web of Science allow you to compare journals based on how many citations articles in those journals receive. Journal metrics are one way to consider the relative stature of a publication venue and measure some aspect of how often articles in the journal are cited. Journal metrics are not a reflection of the stature of an individual author or article.
| Scopus | Web of Science |
| CiteScore CiteScore calculates the average number of citations received in 4 calendar years to 5 peer-reviewed document types (research articles, review articles, conference proceedings, data papers, and book chapters) published in a journal in the same four years. The calendar years to which a serial title’s issues are assigned is determined by their cover dates, and not the dates that the serial issues were made available online. | Journal Impact Factor via Journal Citation Reports 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. |
| SRJ SCImago Journal Rank The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a publicly available portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. The SRJ (SCImago Journal Rank) indicator expresses the average number of weighted citations received in the selected year by the documents published in the selected journal in the three previous years, –i.e. weighted citations received in year X to documents published in the journal in years X-1, X-2 and X-3. | Eigenfactor Score The Eigenfactor Score is a reflection of the density of the network of citations around the journal using 5 years of cited content as cited by the Current Year. It considers both the number of citations and the source of those citations, so that highly cited sources will influence the network more than less cited sources. The Eigenfactor calculation does not include journal self-citations. |
For additional information on Research Impact & Metrics please visit our guide.