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Research Impact

Journal metrics

What are some of the most important metrics at the journal level?

There are several measures associated with journal level metrics. Some of the most well-known measures are the following:

  1. Impact Factor: a measure reflecting the annual average (mean) number of citations to recent articles published in that journal.
  2. H5 Index: a measure reflecting the number of highly impactful papers published in a journal in the last 5 years. 
  3. H5 Median: the median number of citations for the articles that make up its h5-index.
  4. Citescore: a measure reflecting the average number of citations received in a calendar year by all items published in that journal in the preceding three years. 
  5. SCimago Journal Rankings (SJR): a measure reflecting the value of a citation depending on the field, quality and reputation of the journal that the citation comes from, so that “all citations are not equal”. SJR also takes differences in the behavior of academics in different disciplines into account, and can be used to compare journals in different fields. 
  6. Eigenfactor: measures the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

What is the rationale behind journal metrics?

The central idea behind journal metrics is that the higher the numbers and rankings are the more prestigious and reputable the journals are.

Which tools offer journal level metrics?

There are several tools like proprietary databases and free online ranking resources which offer metrics at the journal level.

Check the tabbed box below to view tools offered in the above categories.

Web of Science (WoS) is a bibliometrics and citation analysis platform that provides access to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) that aggregates the meaningful connections of citations created by the research community through the delivery of a rich array of publisher-independent data, metrics and analysis of the world’s most impactful journals.

 Google Scholar

1. Google Scholar is a freely available tool that traces the h5-index, and the h5-median metrics. To access journal metrics:

Click the hamburger icon ( ) on the left-hand corner and select "Metrics".

An image showing the Metrics tab in Google Scholar

Type in the search box the journal name e.g. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. Google Scholar traces the h5-index and the h5-median of the journal.

An image showing h5-index and h5-median in Google Scholra

Alternatively, click VIEW ALL to reveal the journal categories by discipline.

An image in Google Scholar showing VIEW ALL

Browse the categories and subcategories of a specific field to find the list of top 20 journals in your field.

An image showing categories of journals by discipline in Google Scholar.

 SCImago Journal & Country Rank

2. 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. These indicators can be used to assess and analyze scientific domains. Journals can be compared or analyzed separately. Country rankings may also be compared or analyzed separately. Journals can be grouped by subject area (27 major thematic areas), subject category (309 specific subject categories) or by country. Citation data is drawn from over 34,100 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers and country performance metrics from 239 countries worldwide. 

 Scopus Preview

Scopus Preview is the free version of Elsevier’s Scopus abstract and citation database. You can use this free version of Scopus to trace citations and impact factors of articles in peer-reviewed journals in all subjects. To use Scopus Preview you can either create a free user login, or simply search following the “Sources” option at the top of the screen. Ignore the message "Login required to access Scopus", you can use the free Sources search at the top of the page anyway. Type in the search box the journal name e.g. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. Scopus Preview allows you to view several journal metrics like, Citescore, SNIP, and SJR.

An image showing Citescore of a journal in Scopus

An image showing SNIP and SJR journal metrics in Scopus

 Eigenfactor

 Eigenfactor.org is the free tool developed by the University of Washington. Eigenfactor provides the Eigenfactor metrics for every journal in the Thomson-Reuters Journal Citation Reports since 1996. To find these metrics type the journal name and you will get the Eigenfactor and the Article Influence Score.

An image showing Eigenfactor and Article Influence score metrics of a journal in the eigenfactor database

Apart from the typical journal metrics described above, there are metrics which are not citation-based. These metrics are called fuzzy metrics and you can utilize them to evaluate the value of journals for publishing purposes.