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Measuring Research Impact
This guide provides an introduction to the information and issues regarding researcher and journal impact
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Measuring Journal Impact
Some journals are more highly read and cited than others. Measuring the impact of a journal can help authors identify which publications will be most relevant and get the most visibility for their research. Journal impact measures vary between disciplines due to differing citation behavior and cannot be directly compared. Typically, researchers in a discipline will have the best sense of the top journals in their field.
- Journal Citation Reports (InCites JCR)A product of ISI Web of Knowledge, JCR provides impact factors and rankings for many social and life science journals. JCR reports the frequency with which articles have been cited within a particular year or time frame.
JCR Tips
- When searching for a journal title, be exact. For example, JCR does not understand that "&" is synonymous with "and". If you don't find the title the first time, try tweaking the title and searching again, or try searching by Title Word instead of Full Journal Title.
- JCR is NOT comprehensive. Impact Factor is a trademarked tool of Clarivate Analytics, so the Impact Factor of a journal cannot be obtained from any other source. If it isn't in JCR, the Impact Factor doesn't exist.
- Impact Factor indicates the influence a journal has on other scholarly published literature. It cannot demonstrate the influence of research on policy, practice, or the public.
- Impact Factor is not a direct measure of quality, and applies only at journal level; it should not be extended to judge the influence of an individual article, researcher, or institution.
- JCR cannot be used to compare journals across disciplines.
Metrics for non-JCR journals
- SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)Provides a prestige metric based on the subject, quality, and reputation of citing journals using citation data from Scopus. SJR normalizes for differences in citation behavior between subjects. Also provides rankings by journal country of origin.
- Google Scholar MetricsUses h-index for articles published in the last five years (h5-index) to provide a browsable list of the top 100 journals indexed in Google Scholar as well as the top 20 journal titles for broad and specific subject areas.