journal citation reports - finding journal impact factors

Finding Journal impact Factorsusing

Journal Citation Reports Online (JCR)

Jen Eidelman October 2015

Library web page: Mouse over “Search & Find”Choose “Databases (A-Z)”

Library web page: http://www.lib.uct.ac.za

Databases (A-Z): From the A-Z listChoose “J”.Then choose “Journal Citation Reports – Online”

• “The journal impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year.

• The impact factor will help you evaluate a journal's relative importance, especially when you compare it to others in the same field.”

(Quote from Journal Citation Reports)

“Journal Citation Reports” is a database in which you can find impact factors of journals and other metrics relating to journal titles.

The relative importance of a journal may help you decide in which journal to publish your research.

How the Journal Impact Factor is calculated

Calculation: The journal impact factor (JIF) calculation is based over three years.For example the 2014 JIF of the journal “Nature” in this example is 41.456

Select the Science or Social Sciences edition: Choose the edition in which you would like to search.

Compare impact factors of various journal titles within a specific subject category

Choose a subject: Here you can choose a subject from the drop down menu

Choose how to view the data: From this drop down menu you can choose to view the data by “Impact Factor”.Click on “Submit”

Choose a subject category

Top five journals in this subject

Sort: Sorted by Impact Factor

Add to marked list: Tick the boxes and then click on ‘update marked list’ to add items to a list

Add titles to a list

Print titles

Print titles: Choose ‘Format for Print’

Find journal information

Click on title: To find more metrics e.g. journal ranking

Journal information

More metrics: Find where this journal ranks in relation to others in this category, the impact factor trend, etc.

Ranking (based on impact factor): This journal ranks number 1 out of 8 other titles in this category and is placed within the first quartile.

Rank in category

Impact factor trend over time

Find the impact factor of a single journal title

Select the Science or Social Sciences edition: Choose the edition in which you would like to search.

Search for a specific journal title: Tick this box and click on “Submit”

Choose how to search: From the drop down menu, choose to search by full journal title, abbreviated journal title, any word in the title or by ISSN

Search by journal title:Type the name of the journal in the search box

Find the impact factor of a single journal title

Find the impact factor of a single journal title

Click on title: To find more metrics e.g. journal ranking

More metrics: Find where this journal ranks in relation to others in this category, the impact factor trend, etc.

Find more metrics of a single journal title

View calculations of metrics of a journal title

More metrics: On this page you will also find the calculations of other metrics, e.g. the Journal Immediacy Index.The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published.The journal Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited.

Need more help?Contact your subject librarian at UCT Libraries:

http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/lib/subject-librarians