Journal Citation Reports – The Impact Factor

This presentation will discuss

• A basic introduction to Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

• Using the JCR to find a category of journals

• Ranking journals by Impact Factors in a given category

• How an Impact Factor is calculated

• Median and Aggregate Impact Factors for a category of journals

• Accessing the Impact Factor from the Web of Science

Introduction

• JCR distills citation trend data for 10,000+ journals from more than 25 million cited references indexed by Thomson Reuters every year

• Science Edition and Social Sciences Edition released annually

• Science Edition covers 7,200+ journals in 171 subject categories

• Social Sciences Edition covers 2,100+ journals in 55 subject categories

Access JCR from the Web of Knowledge

Subject Categories

View Journal data

Sort journals in the category

Full Record Page

Impact Factor

• TR calculates the a journal’s impact factor by:

dividing the number of citations made in 2008 to items published in the previous two years (2006 & 2007) by the total number of articles & reviews published in the previous two years

2008 cites to items published in 2007 and 2006 # of articles published in 2007 and 2006

2226

540= 4.122

Journal Rank in categories

Journal Rank in categories

The Box plot

To provide one the ability to easily compare self-citation rates among journals particularly as this influences Impact factor calculations.

Journal self citation

Category Impact Data

Category Data – Median and Aggregate Impact Factors

• The Median Impact Factor for the subject category of Pediatrics is 1.252

• The Aggregate Impact Factor for Pediatrics is 1.932

Access to JCR from the Web of Science

Impact Factor Trend Graph

•Entry point into JCR from Web of Science

•Indicates the Journal’s Impact Factor over the latest five years

•Entry point into JCR from Web of Science

•Indicates the Journal’s Impact Factor over the latest five years

Using JCR WiselyYou should not depend solely on citation data in your journal

evaluations. Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review. Careful attention should be paid to the many conditions that can influence citation rates such as language, journal history and format, publication schedule, and subject specialty.

The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR include primarily original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items, and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns. This should be taken into account in any comparative journal citation analysis.

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