Business Research Librarian
Betty Garrison
she/her/hers
Librarian
Definition
Journal rankings are widely used to indicate an academic journal's quality and impact. Rankings indicate a journal's place and prestige within its field, and rankings may correlate with the difficulty of being published in a journal. They can be used by authors for publication choices.
Journal metrics tools can be used to:
- identify core or major journals within a field of study
- analyze the impact of a journal on research in the field
- evaluate journals
- measure usage
- rank journals by impact factor and other measures
Tools for Measurement
- Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new windowJCR generates journal impact factors and is considered the most authoritative source for measuring journal impact. It is housed on the Web of Science platform.
- CABELL'S International This link opens in a new windowCabell's helps researchers identify journals most likely to accept their manuscripts. Information included are multiple metrics, contact and publication information, submission requirements, and peer review indicators.
- Google Scholar MetricsProvides an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications, to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research.
- Journal WebsitesAlmost all journal websites will report on their impact factors, as well as other useful details such as average time to publication. It's important to pair website-reported metrics with trusted, third-party sources.
Example for JAMA Pediatrics from May 2023:
-JIF:26.8%
-Median time to first decision: 3 days (43 days with review)
-Acceptance rate: 11% - Scimago Journal and Country RankJournal ranking information from Scopus database; free.
Other Tools
- Eigenfactor MetricsThe Eigenfactor Score measures the total influence that a journal has instead of measuring the influence of each article in the journal. It is based on an algorithm that measures the number of times articles from a journal published in the past five years have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) each year. Scores are scaled so that the sum of all journal scores is 100.
- Article Influence ScoreThis determines the average influence of a journal's articles and is based on the citations received over a five year period. It also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals. The mean Article Influence Score is 1.00. An Article Influence Score greater than 1.00 indicates that the articles in a journal have an above-average influence. It can be found in Journal Citation Reports.