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Where do I find the Impact Factor of a journal?

The journal Impact Factor is an index that measures how often a journal's articles are cited in other research. This is calculated by the number of citations received by articles published in that journal during the two preceding years, divided by the total number of articles published in that journal during the two preceding years. You can find the journal Impact Factor on the journal homepage.

Follow these steps to find the Impact Factor of a journal:

• Go to the journal's homepage .

For more information on journal metrics, please visit the Measuring a journal's impact page from our website .

If there is no Impact Factor available for your journal, it's likely that it's new within the last 2 years and so the data aren't available yet

To determine if this is the case for your journal, you can find out how long a journal has been publishing for on ScienceDirect:

• Go to ScienceDirect.com
• Start typing the name of the journal into the search field ‘Journal/book title’, as you start typing titles will be suggested. When the title of your journal appears, click on it then click the magnifying glass to search.
• On the search results page, click the title of the journal.
• You are now on the journal’s publication page, where you can see its previous Volumes listed on the left-hand page. Check the dates against these volumes to determine the journal’s years of publication.

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Measuring Your Impact: Impact Factor, Citation Analysis, and other Metrics: Journal Impact Factor (IF)

• Measuring Your Impact
• Citation Analysis
• Find Your H-Index
• Other Metrics/ Altmetrics
• Journal Impact Factor (IF)
• Selecting Publication Venues

About Journal Impact

Impact Factor - What is it?;  Why use it?

The  impact factor (IF)  is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times its articles are cited.

How Impact Factor is Calculated?

The calculation is based on a two-year period and involves dividing the number of times articles were cited by the number of articles that are citable.

Calculation of 2010 IF of a journal:

Reliability of the Impact Factor

• Seglen, P. O. (1997). Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research . British Medical Journal, 314(7079), 498-502.
• Johnstone, M. J. (2007). Journal impact factors: Implications for the nursing profession . International Nursing Review 54(1), 35-40.
• Ironside, P. M. (2007). Advancing the science of nursing education: Rethinking the meaning and significance of journal impact factors . Journal of Nursing Education, 46(3), 99-100.
• Satyanarayana, K. & Sharma, A. (2008). Impact factor: Time to move on . The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 127(1), 4-6.
• Greenwood, D. C. (2007). Reliability of journal impact factor rankings . BMC Medical Research Methodology, 7(48), 48.
• Howard, J. (2009). Humanities journals confront identity crisis. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(19), A1.

Tools to Measure Journal Impact (Impact Factor)

Journal Citation Reports ( Learn more )

SJR, CiteScore, SNIP through Scopus ( learn more )

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)  ( Learn more )

 SNIP   (Learn more)

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports provides ranking for journals in the areas of science, technology, and social sciences. For every journal covered, the following information is collected or calculated: Citation and article counts, Impact factor, Immediacy index, Cited half-life, citing half-life, Source data listing, Citing journal listing, Cited journal listing, Subject categories, Publisher information.

• Limited to the citation data of Journals indexed in Web of Science
• Process to determine journals included in the tool 
• Indexes over 12,000 journals in arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences

You can enter a journal title in the Search box under "Go to Journal Profile".   Because impact factors mean little on their own, it's best to view the journal you are interested in comparison to the other journals in the same category.  To determine the impact factor for a particular journal, select a JCR edition (Science and/ or Social Science), year, and Categories, found on the left of the screen. Click Submit .  Scroll the list to find the journal you are interested in.  The list can be resorted by Journal time, Cites, Impact Factor, and Eigenfactor.

Scopus  (Elsevier)

Scopus provides three journal metrics - CiteScore, SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) and SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper).  Once you are in Scopus, click on "Sources" at the top to access the journal impact data.   See below for more on SJR and SNIP

Over 22,000 active journals from over 4,000 international publishers

• Process to determine  journals included in the tools

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)    

“The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.).” Scopus contains more than 15,000 journals from over 4,000 international publishers as well as over 1000 open access journals.  SCImago's "evaluation of scholarly journals is to assign weights to bibliographic citations based on the importance of the journals that issued them, so that citations issued by more important journals will be more valuable than those issued by less important ones." ( SJR indicator )

SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) 

Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa.  Unlike the well-known journal impact factor, SNIP corrects for differences in citation practices between scientific fields, thereby allowing for more accurate between-field comparisons of citation impact. CWTS Journal Indicators also provides stability intervals that indicate the reliability of the SNIP value of a journal.  SNIP was created by Professor Henk F. Moed at Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), University of L

CWTS Journal Indicators currently provides four indicators:

• P. The number of publications of a source in the past three years.
• IPP. The impact per publication, calculated as the number of citations given in the present year to publications in the past three years divided by the total number of publications in the past three years. IPP is fairly similar to the well-known journal impact factor. Like the journal impact factor, IPP does not correct for differences in citation practices between scientific fields. IPP was previously known as RIP (raw impact per publication).
• SNIP. The source normalized impact per publication, calculated as the number of citations given in the present year to publications in the past three years divided by the total number of publications in the past three years. The difference with IPP is that in the case of SNIP citations are normalized in order to correct for differences in citation practices between scientific fields. Essentially, the longer the reference list of a citing publication, the lower the value of a citation originating from that publication. A detailed explanation is offered in our scientific paper.
• % self cit. The percentage of self citations of a source, calculated as the percentage of all citations given in the present year to publications in the past three years that originate from the source itself.

See more at:  https://www.journalindicators.com/methodology

• << Previous: Other Metrics/ Altmetrics
• Next: Selecting Publication Venues >>
• Last Updated: Jun 14, 2024 1:10 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uic.edu/if

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Step by Step

How do I find the Journal Impact Factor, category, rank for a journal?

UVA and UVA Health faculty, staff and students can use the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to locate Journal Impact Factors. The Impact Factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The JCR also lists journals and their impact factors and ranking in the context of their specific field(s).

NOTE:  if you are affiliated with UVA Health, the Library can generate a report  with Times Cited, Journal Category, and Journal Rank data for Promotion and Tenure publication lists. This saves a great deal of time on this process. To get help, Ask Us  to consult with a librarian, or email  [email protected] .

NOTE!  Are you looking for both Times Cited and Impact Factors? See our guide on Finding Times Cited, Impact Factors, Journal Category and Rank .

Find Impact Factor, Category, and Rank for the Current Year

To view the  Impact Factors

On the Library's  Home page , click on the  Journal Citations Report  link under Top Resources.

Type the journal name in the search box. Note that most searches work, but occasionally errors occur, e.g. typing in "Bone and Joint Journal" does not retrieve the journal Bone & Joint journal, so you may need to try typing just the first word in your journal name.

Find Impact Factor, Category, and Rank for Previous Years

Additional assistance is available to UVA Health System faculty, staff, and students. Just Ask Us  - we are happy to provide help via email, Zoom, phone, or in-person.

• Last Updated: Aug 5, 2024 4:43 PM
• URL: https://guides.hsl.virginia.edu/faq-jcr

Measuring Your Impact: Journal Impact Factor

• What is ORCID
• Citation Analysis
• Journal Impact Factor
• Find Your H-Index

About Journal Impact Factor

The journal impact factor (JIF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year.  It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times its articles are cited. Clarivate Analytics is the creator and only provide of the journal impact factor. Other publishers and companies have similar sounding  "impact factor" names or terms.

The normalized impact factor (NIF) was introduced by Clarivate Analytics as a method to enable better comparisons between disciplines in each field. It targets 54 disciplines in the biomedical field to assess validity and practical usage. 

Find the Journal Impact Factor

Use Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to find the impact factor of a journal.  

You can enter a journal title in the Search box under "Go to Journal Profile".   Because impact factors mean little on their own, it's best to view the journal you are interested in comparison to the other journals in the same category.  To determine the impact factor for a particular journal, select a JCR edition (Science and/ or Social Science), year, and Categories, found on the left of the screen. Click  Submit .  Scroll the list to find the journal you are interested in.

Contact the library if you have questions for trouble finding a journal in JCR.

Impact Factor Video

More Information

If you have more questions about metrics and assessment contact:

Charlotte Bhasin or Mario Scarcipino

If you have questions about databases or where to publish contact:

Michelle Kraft or Matt Weaver

Where To Publish

The library recommends using these aids to determine the best place to publish your research.

• Contact Matt Weaver  for journals with impact factors by article topic
• Find journals indexed in Medline
• Be iNFORMed check list to asses journal & publisher quality
• Beall's List of Predatory Journals & Publishers to avoid potential problem journals

Other Journal Metrics

Eigenfactor.

Eignenfactor scores can be found in the above listed Journal Citation Reports or at eigenfactor.org.  Journal Citation Reports or at eigenfactor.org. Eigenfactor scores are intended to give a measure of how likely a journal is to be used, and are thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal. (Wikipedia)  ( Find out more about the Eigenfactor )    

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) (by Elsevier)

“The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.).” Scopus contains more than 15,000 journals from over 4,000 international publishers as well as over 1000 open access journals.  SCImago's "evaluation of scholarly journals is to assign weights to bibliographic citations based on the importance of the journals that issued them, so that citations issued by more important journals will be more valuable than those issued by less important ones." ( SJR indicator )

• << Previous: Citation Analysis
• Next: Find Your H-Index >>
• Last Updated: Aug 19, 2024 2:21 PM
• URL: https://my.clevelandclinic.libguides.com/impact

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Answered By: Clara Fowler Last Updated: Aug 29, 2024     Views: 103335

Impact factors are used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating the number of times selected articles are cited within the last few years. The higher the impact factor, the more highly ranked the journal. It is one tool you can use to compare journals in a subject category. 

Impact Factors for scientific journals can be found in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database , which is available from the Research Medical Library.  You can view all journals at once, search for a specific journal title or choose a group of journals by subject area. Sort journal lists by impact factor by selecting Journal Impact Factor above your search results. 

Please note that Journal Impact Factors are released annually around the month of July. The 2023 release of Journal Citation Reports extends the Journal Impact Factor to all 21,522 Web of Science Core Collection™ journals, including those indexed in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index™ (AHCI) and the multidisciplinary Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI) for the first time. Those journals meet rigorous selection criteria for Web of Science Core Collection inclusion. See JCR 2023 Statistics. 

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• impact factors

Journal impact factors

Announcing the latest impact factors.

The journal impact factor (JIF), as calculated by Clarivate Analytics, is a measure of the average number of times articles from a two-year time frame have been cited in a given year, according to citations captured in the Web of Science database.

The 2023 JIF (released in 2024), for example, was calculated as follows:

A = the number of times articles which published in 2021–2022 were cited in indexed journals during 2023

B = the total number of research and review articles from the journal published in 2021–2022

2023 JIF = A/B

This listing includes only journals that have a 2023 JIF. For a full list of journals published by APA, please visit the Journals homepage to browse our portfolio by title or subject.

Journal Title	2023 JIF	2023 5-Year JIF	Journal Citation Reports Subject Category
	2.3	3.8
	12.3	16.2
	2.4	2.9
	1.6	2.0
	1.3	2.4
	1.1	1.5
	2.9	4.2
	1.2	--
	4.7	7.8
	0.9	--
	1.9	1.8
	3.2	3.8
	1.0	--
	3.1	5.0
	0.8	1.6
	3.4	4.5
	1.1	--
	2.4	2.6
	1.2	1.9
	1.8	2.4
	3.1	4.9
	1.1	0.8
	2.1	4.4
	9.4	11.8
	2.8	4.7
	1.1	1.6
	4.5	6.3
	3.8	5.5
	2.5	3.1
	5.6	6.7
	1.2	1.4
	2.7	3.0
	3.7	4.7
	2.1	2.6
	2.2	2.9
	2.3	3.3
	2.1	2.6
	0.6	0.9
	1.6	1.3
	5.9	11.7
	6.4	9.2
	3.1	7.8
	1.8	2.6
	1.0	1.7
	2.4	3.2
	3.0	--
	2.6	3.1
	0.9	1.4
	3.0	3.5
	1.5	2.0
	1.8	2.3
	1.0	1.2
	3.3	4.9
	17.3	30.3
	7.6	11.5
	5.1	8.0
	1.9	2.9
	2.7	5.6
	3.7	3.8
	3.2	3.7
	2.7	4.9
	1.4	--
	2.7	3.0
	2.1	3.0
	2.2	2.9
	3.6	--
	2.4	4.1
	2.3	2.4
	0.6	--
	2.6	4.6
	11.7	--
	1.9	3.2
	3.9	3.2
	1.4	1.7
	2.7	--
	1.8	2.2
	1.9	--
	2.3	--

Following the release of the  2023 Journal Citation Reports (JCR)  from Clarivate Analytics, APA Publishing is pleased to report that Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) have been assigned to 89% (79) of our titles. Among our ranked journals, 24% are in the top 10 of their categories and 46% are in their category’s top quartile.

Notably, 15 APA-published journals indexed in Clarivate’s  Emerging Sources Citation Index  received their first-ever category rankings this year, including:

• Qualitative Psychology  (11.7 JIF; ranked 7 of 218 in Multidisciplinary Psychology; published on behalf of  The Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology, a section of APA Division 5 )
• Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice  (1.9 JIF; ranked 24 of 66 in Family Studies; published on behalf of APA Division 43:  Society for Couple and Family Psychology )
• Stigma and Health  (2.7 JIF; ranked 27 of 76 in Social Psychology and 136 of 403 in Public, Environmental, & Occupational Health)
• Translational Issues in Psychological Science  (1.9 JIF; ranked 47 of 92 in Psychology and 92 of 218 in Multidisciplinary Psychology)
• Traumatology  (2.3 JIF; ranked 70 of 180 in Clinical Psychology, 73 of 218 in Multidisciplinary Psychology, and 131 of 276 in Psychiatry; published on behalf of the  Green Cross Academy of Traumatology )

Twenty APA-published titles saw an increase in their JIF, and 31 journals rose in rank within their category. Twenty-six journals rose in quartile within their category. Some examples include the following:

• Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics saw a 129% increase in its JIF, rising from 0.7 to 1.6 and jumping in rank from 135th to 109th in the Multidisciplinary Psychology category (and from 344th to 273rd in the Economics category)
• History of Psychology saw a 120% increase in its JIF, rising from 0.5 to 1.1 and jumping in rank from 140th to 132nd in the Multidisciplinary Psychology category (and from 27th to 10th in the History of Social Sciences category).
• Asian American Journal of Psychology , published on behalf of the Asian American Psychological Association, saw a 60% increase in its JIF, rising from 1.5 to 2.4 and jumping in rank from 104th to 65th in the  Multidisciplinary   Psychology category (and from 13th to 6th in the Ethnic Studies category).

Other portfolio highlights:

• APA publishes 4 journals in the top 10 of the large and diverse  Psychology, Multidisciplinary  category:  Psychological Bulletin  (ranking 3rd out of 218 journals, 17.3 JIF),  American Psychologist  (ranking 6th, 12.3 JIF),  Qualitative Psychology (ranking 7th, 11.7 JIF; published on behalf of The Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology, a Section of APA Division 5), and Psychological Methods  (ranking 10th, 7.6 JIF).  
• Five more APA journals are ranked in the top quartile of the Psychology, Multidisciplinary  category:  Psychological Review  (ranking 19th, 5.1 JIF),  Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity  (ranking 27th, 3.6 JIF; published on behalf of APA Division 44:  Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity ), Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (ranking 39th, 3.2 JIF; published on behalf of APA Division 50: Society of Addiction Psychology ), Motivation Science (ranking 44th, 3.0 JIF, published on behalf of Society for the Science of Motivation ), and Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne   (ranking 46th, 2.9 JIF; published on behalf of the Canadian Psychological Association ).
• Psychological Bulletin  remains the journal with the highest JIF in APA’s portfolio (17.3 JIF). In addition to ranking 3rd out of the 218 journals in the  Psychology, Multidisciplinary  category, it also ranks 3rd out of the 92 journals in the  Psychology  category.
• Two APA journals rank in the top 20 of the  Psychology, Applied  category:  Journal of Applied Psychology  (ranking 3rd, 9.4 JIF) and  Journal of Occupational Health Psychology  (ranking 12th, 5.9 JIF).  Journal of Applied Psychology  earned the most all-time citations (51,849) in this 113-journal category.
• Psychoanalytic Psychology  (1.0 JIF), published on behalf of APA Division 39:  Division of Psychoanalysis , ranks 4th of the 13 titles in the  Psychology, Psychoanalysis  category, marking over a decade in the category’s top quartile.
• Four APA titles rank in the top 25 of the  Psychology, Experimental  category:  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General  (ranking 9th of 99, 3.7 JIF), Emotion  (ranking 12th, 3.4 JIF), Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition   (ranked 23rd, 2.8 JIF; published on behalf of Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition), and  Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts  (ranking 25th, 2.7 JIF; published on behalf of APA Division 10:  Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts ).
• Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology  ranks 3rd for all-time citations (20,413) in the 180-journal Psychology, Clinical  category.

Six APA titles rank in the top quartile of that category, including Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice (ranking 13th, 4.7 JIF; published on behalf of APA Division 12:  Society of Clinical Psychology ), Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (ranking 17th, 4.5 JIF), and Health Psychology (ranking 36th, 3.1 JIF, published on behalf of APA Division 38:  Society for Health Psychology ).  

Four APA titles rank in the top 25 of the  Psychology, Educational  category:  Journal of Educational Psychology  (ranking 3rd out of 74, 5.6 JIF),  Journal of Counseling Psychology  (ranking 11th, 3.8 JIF),  School Psychology  (ranking 5th, 3.9 JIF, the journal’s highest rank and JIF to date; published on behalf of APA Division 16:  School Psychology ), and Journal of Diversity in Higher Education (ranking 24th, 2.5 JIF; published on behalf of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education ).

Journal of Educational Psychology  received a total of 20,586 citations, the second highest in the category.

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology  (6.4 JIF) again earned the most all-time citations (79,644) in the competitive  Psychology, Social  category and ranked 4th of 76 journals, marking over a decade as one of the top 5 journals in this category.

Showcasing the breadth and depth of our program, journals published by APA are also highly ranked in 23 categories related to psychology found in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Science Citation Index Expanded. Some examples include the following:

• Humanities, Multidisciplinary :  Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts  (2.7 JIF), published on behalf of APA Division 10: Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, is ranked number 2 out of the 146 journals in the  Humanities, Multidisciplinary  category.
• Ethnic Studies :  Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology  (3.2 JIF), published on behalf of APA Division 45:  Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race , retained its number 1 ranking out of the 39 journals in the growing  Ethnic Studies  category. We are proud to see this journal as the established go-to source for research on critical societal issues.
• Religion :  Psychology of Religion and Spirituality  (2.2 JIF), published on behalf of APA Division 36:  Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality , is ranked 4th out of the 339 journals in  Religion , a category in Clarivate’s Arts and Humanities Citation Index.
• Social Work :  American Journal of Orthopsychiatry  (2.3 JIF), published on behalf of the  Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice , ranks 8th out of the 91 titles in the expanding  Social Work  category.
• Rehabilitation : Two APA journals indexed in the  Rehabilitation  category remain in the category’s top two quartiles:  Rehabilitation Psychology  (ranking 56th out of 73, 1.9 JIF) and  Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal  (ranking 66th, 1.8 JIF).
• Communication :  Psychology of Popular Media  (2.1 JIF) is ranked 59th out of the 227 journals in the  Communication  category.
• Criminology & Penology :  Psychological Violence  (2.4 JIF) remains in the top quartile of the  Criminology & Penology  category, ranking 14th out of 113.
• Law: The two APA journals listed in the Law category remain in the category’s top 10% by JIF. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law (2.3 JIF) is ranked 24 of 421 journals. Law and Human Behavior (2.4 JIF), published on behalf of APA Division 41: American Psychology-Law Society, is ranked 20th of 421 in the Law category, putting it in the top 5% of Law journals.
• Management :  Journal of Applied Psychology  (9.4 JIF) remains in the top quartile of the competitive  Management  category, ranking 14th out of 401 journals. The journal also has the highest total citations in the category (51,849).

APA Publishing is grateful to our editors, authors, reviewers, and publishing partners for their dedication to scholarship. Thank you for publishing with APA Journals.

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CiteScore™ metrics you can verify and trust

CiteScore metrics enrich the evaluation of serial titles and provide transparent data to help you measure the citation impact for journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals. This comprehensive, clear and current system of metrics for analysis can be accessed for free on Scopus. 

Powered by Scopus with active titles from 7000+ publishers across 333 disciplines , CiteScore provides transparent metrics that enable well-informed publishing strategy, library collection development and benchmarking of journal performance. More titles are being frequently added and tracked, with the freely available metrics.

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CiteScore explainer video

Explore the benefits of using CiteScore metrics for evaluating scholarly publications and view how CiteScore works.

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Using CiteScore metrics

As part of a multi-dimensional array of metrics, CiteScore metrics can help to:

Discover titles to create reading lists

Acquire evidence about title relevance to and performance in a field

Check the performance of one or more titles and decide where to submit an article for publication

Analyze the citation impact of titles to be used in library acquisition decisions, or for determining publication/portfolio strategies

Determine research impact in a given field

Additionally, publishers and editors can monitor the performance of a title or a portfolio of titles, as well as monitor publishing trends among competing titles.

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CiteScore metrics 2023 insights

Golden rules for research metrics

Elsevier supports responsible research assessment. When used correctly, research metrics – together with qualitative input – give a balanced, multi-dimensional view for decision-making.

Always use both qualitative and quantitative input into your decisions.

Always use more than one research metric as your quantitative input.

Learn more about how Elsevier supports responsible research assessment

Gather more insights by comparing sources

Whether you want to decide where to submit your article for publication, evaluate your library collection or track the performance of your journal portfolio, comparing sources in Scopus is also freely available for you to use.

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A view of comparing up to 10 sources

CiteScore metrics benefits

	Focus on primarily peer-reviewed publications only	Exclude influence of non-peer reviewed article types	Easier access to underlying data
	Within the journal citation impact, older articles get their fuller citation impact	More robust assessment of citations to publications after their initial publication date	Longer citation window
	New journals receive the first indication of their citation impact 1 year earlier (compared with the old CiteScore methodology)	More journals can be compared globally	Helps new journals demonstrate the citation impact of their publications sooner
	Principle 4: Data collection and analytical processes should be open, transparent and simple	Principle 5: Titles evaluated must be allowed to verify data and analysis The underlying CiteScore data are freely available for verification purposes without a subscription to Scopus	Principle 10 of the Leiden Manifesto: Indicators must be scrutinized regularly and updated if necessaryCiteScore was launched in 2016; by 2020, we had revised the methodology based on expert and user feedback

Freely available on Scopus

Get free access to CiteScore metrics on Scopus.

­ www.Scopus.com/sources   opens in new tab/window

Learn more about all the available Scopus metrics.

View our Scopus metrics training video   opens in new tab/window

CiteScore metrics on other Elsevier products

CiteScore metrics are embedded in our SciVal, Pure and ScienceDirect platforms, as well as available for free via Elsevier’s  Journal Insights   opens in new tab/window .

Supported by publishers

25+ publishers including Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Oxford University Press, MDPI, BMJ Journals, SAGE, Walter de Gruyter, Hindawi, Emerald and IEEE, display CiteScore on their journal homepages.

As a publisher, are you interested in adding a CiteScore to your site? See our documentation and available APIs   opens in new tab/window .

Learn how Scopus can help your organization achieve its goals.

Related links

University Library

Introduction to Impact Factor and Other Research Metrics

• Types of Metrics

Impact Factor

• Identifying Journals
• More Resources

More Information

• About Journal Impact Factor Visit this article published by Thomson Reuters on journal impact factor to learn more about the bibliometric and how it measures importance.
• Annual Reviews Rankings in JCR Visit this page to see how Annual Review Journals currently rank in Journal Citation Reports.
• SCImago Journal and Country Rank 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.

Ask a Librarian

Impact factor,  or Journal Impact Factor,  is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" published in a given scholarly journal has been cited in a particular year or period and is often used to measure or describe the importance of a particular journal to its field. Impact factor was originally developed by Eugene Garfield, the founder of Institute of Scientific Information, which is now a part of Clarivate Analytics. Journal Impact Factor can be found in the  Journal Citation Reports or the JCR, as it's commonly known. Over the years various organizations have been created similar journal-level metrics, such as  SCImago Journal & Country Rank .

This page describes how to find impact factor in Journal Citation Reports .

Journal Citation Reports

Clarivate Analytics (formerly Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)) ranks, evaluates, and compares journals within subject categories and publishes the results in Journal Citation Reports . Journal Citation Reports provides ranking for journals in science, technology, and the social sciences. For every journal, the database collects and/or calculates information such as:

• citation/article counts
• impact factor
• immediacy index
• cited half-life
• citing half-life
• source data listing
• citing journal listing
• cited journal listing
• publisher information
• subject categories

Find Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Follow the instructions below to find the Journal Citation Reports using the Library's resources.

• Begin at the Library homepage .
• Click on the orange tab that says "Find Materials," then scroll down until you see a laptop icon with the words "Databases by Subject and A-Z"; click on the icon.
• Type journal citations reports in the search box on the left side of the screen and then click on the magnifying glass to search that title.
• Your result will say "Journal Citation Reports"; click on it. It might ask you to provide your Net ID and password if you are off campus.

Find the Impact Factor

• Once in the database you either search by journal title (if you know which journal you want to see) or browse by category, which will let you view journals by JIF by discipline.
• On the left side you can choose search criteria, like impact factor range, year, and if the journal is open access.
• It is important to choose the right edition based on your subject area, as you won't be able to see specific journals if you choose the wrong one. Once you have finished selecting what to search, click Submit.
• You can't access impact factors from last year because the calculations only happen every two years (i.e. if the current year is 2021 the farthest you can go back is 2020). Most people choose the most current year they can access.
• Journals limited by the subject area, publisher, or geographic region.
• View all journals in order to browse.
• Search for a specific journal if you already know its title

Once you find a journal, the JCR gives you information about the journal, including the journal's abbreviations, how often it is published each year, the publisher, and the ISSN. 

Controversy

Many people have questioned the legitimacy of impact factor. Here are a few reasons why:

• Impact factor focuses purely on the numbers. There is no consideration of qualitative elements that have become important in today's world.
• Impact factor fails to incorporate more recent ways of sharing and using research, including Twitter mentions and posts, citation management downloads, and news and community information.
• Because impact factor is based on citations in only indexed journals , it fails to incorporate statistics from journals that might not be indexed and other sources like conference papers (which are important in the social sciences).
• Basic or summary information is usually cited the most in academia. That means that journals that publish articles with basic information are more likely to have higher impact factors. Journals that publish obscure or innovative information might not have as high of an impact factor.
• Some argue that impact factor is encouraging scholars to stick with mainstream topics and research.
• Scholars don't always have to cite something for it to be influential. Sometimes researchers just read something and it influences them, regardless of if they cite it in a future paper or piece of research.
• The journals in the JCR are mostly published in English. This means that many international sources aren't included in the conversation.
• It has been argued that journals have the ability to skew impact factor for their own journal. Before publishing an author, they will ask the author to cite more articles within their journal so that their impact factor goes up. This is NOT a common occurrence but instead something we should be aware of.
• << Previous: Types of Metrics
• Next: Identifying Journals >>
• Last Updated: Feb 28, 2024 12:49 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/impact

Measuring your research impact: Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Getting Started

Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Eigenfactor and Article Influence

Scimago Journal and Country Rank

Google Scholar Metrics

Web of Science Citation Tools

Google Scholar Citations

PLoS Article-Level Metrics

Publish or Perish

• Author disambiguation
• Broadening your impact

Table of Contents

Author Impact

Journal Impact

Tracking and Measuring Your Impact

Author Disambiguation

Broadening Your Impact

Ranking journals in JCR

Journal Citation Reports  (or JCR) is a product of Clarivate Analytics and is an authoritative resource for impact factor data. This database provides impact factors and rankings of many journals in the social and life sciences based on millions of citations.  It offers numerous sorting options including impact factor, total cites, total articles, and immediacy index.  In addition, JCR provides a five-year impact factor and visualized trend data. 

• << Previous: Journal Impact
• Next: Eigenfactor and Article Influence >>
• Last Updated: Dec 7, 2022 1:18 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/impact

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• Citable Docs. (3years)
• Total Cites (3years)

-->

	Title	Type
1		journal	106.094 Q1	211	49	124	4844	35427	89	381.89	98.86	43.95
2		journal	37.044 Q1	39	3	13	897	955	13	100.11	299.00	27.78
3		journal	35.910 Q1	508	123	336	11462	13599	153	34.50	93.19	29.41
4		journal	30.448 Q1	306	47	136	3645	2240	136	11.14	77.55	26.67
5		journal	26.837 Q1	505	105	304	10805	10951	163	31.23	102.90	44.33
6		journal	24.342 Q1	892	439	1496	32820	53447	1207	31.30	74.76	40.19
7		journal	22.399 Q1	391	239	731	8584	13091	153	19.72	35.92	34.15
8		journal	22.344 Q1	359	95	353	6242	4811	351	10.33	65.71	23.89
9		journal	21.836 Q1	184	117	335	8842	13775	196	31.17	75.57	26.86
10		journal	21.048 Q1	217	127	400	9888	10807	183	28.36	77.86	38.85
11		journal	20.544 Q1	1184	1388	4522	14603	107246	1824	21.69	10.52	38.26
12		journal	19.139 Q1	352	83	227	5043	1938	221	7.00	60.76	16.91
13		journal	19.045 Q1	630	595	1363	16478	36243	729	27.23	27.69	43.99
14		journal	18.663 Q1	71	0	19	0	963	19	0.00	0.00	0.00
15		journal	18.587 Q1	23	11	16	0	802	16	47.57	0.00	81.69
16		journal	18.530 Q1	215	83	261	4493	2531	258	7.04	54.13	17.80
17		journal	18.509 Q1	1391	3770	8037	74917	160102	3840	19.40	19.87	38.12
18		journal	18.117 Q1	511	485	1066	13393	17008	461	13.24	27.61	35.19
19		journal	17.828 Q1	833	271	851	115878	50519	819	49.76	427.59	30.50
20		journal	17.701 Q1	223	75	273	3371	1946	268	6.24	44.95	13.84
21		journal	17.654 Q1	234	108	410	6448	4495	409	8.04	59.70	16.43
22		journal	17.507 Q1	398	178	590	11546	12604	360	19.83	64.87	41.91
23		journal	17.497 Q1	229	229	609	6629	16808	379	26.18	28.95	29.53
24		journal	17.300 Q1	639	336	654	13672	13100	504	19.88	40.69	37.01
25		journal	16.061 Q1	388	36	103	14097	4303	99	42.66	391.58	14.94
26		journal	16.009 Q1	467	169	540	11148	13815	304	23.17	65.96	36.44
27		journal	15.966 Q1	264	102	252	19168	11266	244	38.64	187.92	24.30
28		journal	15.827 Q1	140	106	297	4359	4041	62	12.99	41.12	41.35
29		journal	15.620 Q1	328	23	84	4178	2696	83	27.02	181.65	40.68
30		journal	14.943 Q1	115	16	42	403	896	41	24.10	25.19	77.78
31		journal	14.796 Q1	388	400	978	11477	15900	588	17.52	28.69	33.83
32		journal	14.780 Q1	123	0	13	0	374	11	12.56	0.00	0.00
33		journal	14.707 Q1	32	46	35	4815	2160	34	61.71	104.67	36.44
34		journal	14.618 Q1	160	70	247	587	5353	230	21.11	8.39	58.79
35		journal	14.605 Q1	109	23	72	5797	1938	70	14.90	252.04	45.57
36		journal	14.577 Q1	419	262	637	10044	17562	466	27.42	38.34	28.93
37		journal	14.293 Q1	421	123	346	10202	6211	207	17.40	82.94	32.86
38		journal	14.231 Q1	558	306	834	9499	20730	593	24.08	31.04	24.85
39		journal	14.175 Q1	210	28	92	3163	1260	86	10.59	112.96	42.59
40		journal	13.942 Q1	294	144	670	5180	12698	362	18.81	35.97	39.02
41		book series	13.670 Q1	210	14	42	3772	1271	39	23.96	269.43	26.09
42		journal	13.655 Q1	311	89	563	4857	6315	559	11.14	54.57	23.11
43		journal	13.609 Q1	165	93	250	5332	1699	250	6.02	57.33	15.88
44		journal	13.578 Q1	455	233	688	15608	13409	550	16.89	66.99	40.35
45		journal	13.315 Q1	136	180	471	6682	12109	368	24.27	37.12	26.28
46		journal	13.080 Q1	260	243	827	1865	14374	679	16.58	7.67	62.53
47		journal	12.511 Q1	635	252	983	61439	44032	979	38.71	243.81	32.40
48		journal	12.324 Q1	81	55	137	2838	862	137	6.20	51.60	17.36
49		journal	12.294 Q1	46	62	154	8174	4174	86	27.10	131.84	31.14
50		journal	12.288 Q1	44	60	79	4858	3323	78	42.06	80.97	33.06

Follow us on @ScimagoJR Scimago Lab , Copyright 2007-2024. Data Source: Scopus®

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Impact Factors

• Author Impact Factor
• Journal Impact Factor

Author Impact Factor and Author Profiles

Cited references, web of science (wos) cited references, google scholar cited references.

• Article Impact
• Document Your Research Impact

The Author Impact Factor calculates the scientific value of a given researcher or author. You can try the h-index or compile cited references by using Web of Science , Semantic Scholar , Dimensions or Google Scholar . Please note that Semantic Scholar is mostly for STEM fields.

It is a good idea to claim and/or create your Author Profile in these databases. Citation counts will be different in each one because each one is indexing different journals. Each database has its own strengths and interesting facets.

Web of Science is a subscription database and will include journal articles and conference proceedings. 

Semantic Scholar counts an author's citations, and then notes how many of those citations are in other Highly Influential Citations. It will further note where in the article the author was cited: Background, Methods or Results.

Dimensions is owned by the same company that owns Altmetrics, so it shows not only citation counts, but Altmetric scores. This includes news outlets, twitter counts, blog posts, videos and Facebook feeds. It can tell an author whether they have been cited in policy documents by the CDC or WHO. Dimensions uses ORCID data to find publications, patents, clinical trials and grants, so be sure to have your ORCID up-to-date.

The easiest place to claim a profile is in Google Scholar . Simply click on My Profile and fill it out. If you have a common name, please check the list of articles to make sure they are in fact yours. Co-authors can be "claimed" on the far right. 

Sage now offers Sage Policy Profiles , a free tool for researchers to look up where their research has been used in policy, export that data, visualize it, and share what they find.

While UW no longer subscribes to Scopus , you can go to Scopus Preview and check on your Author Profile.

The h-index quantifies the actual scientific productivity and the apparent impact of the scientist. The h-index is based on the author’s most cited papers and the number of citations they have received from other articles.

"A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np − h) papers have no more than h citations each." [For details in calculation, see Hirsch, 2005 ] An h-index of 16 means, for example, that a researcher has published 16 papers that each had at least 16 citations. Therefore, the h-index reflects both the number of articles as well as the number of citations per article.

How to find the h-index of an individual author in Web of Science :

• Go to Web of Science from the UW Health Sciences Library webpage or Databases list.
• Enter author’s name and be sure the pull-down box indicates Author.
• Click Search.
• Refine Results by subject areas or other criteria if desired.
• Click 'Create Citation Report' link (right side of window, just above results list).
• The Citation Report lists the h-index near the top right of the page (Note: ? link for more information).

Cited references make it possible to find other documents that are related by topic or subject to the original document. Cited references (references that cite an individual article) may be used to measure the usage and impact of a cited work. Note that cited references can be influenced by author self-citing or publishing in an open access journal.

Citation analysis, which involves counting how many times a paper or researcher is cited, assumes that influential scientists and important works are cited more often than others.

Cited Reference Search is one of the features in the Web of Science database. The number in the Citing Articles column in WoS indicates the number of times the reference has been cited in all years of Web of Science , regardless of how many years you are searching. Note that Citing Article references may not include all the known citations of the paper, just those in journals covered by WoS .

• Click on Cited Reference Search link in WoS.
• Enter the name of the primary Cited Author and the Cited Year or a limited range of years of a Cited Work, and then click Search. For more details, see:  http://wokinfo.com/training_support/training/web-of-science/#recordedtraining .
• If you retrieve too many hits, return to the form and add the abbreviated title of a Cited Work.
• After you click Search, you will see references from the citation index that contain the cited author/cited work data you entered. You can note how many times the article or work has been cited in the Citing Articles column.
• Select references by checking the box to the left of each reference you want.
• To retrieve these citing articles, click Finish Search. You have now retrieved the records of articles that cite the author/reference you selected.
• Clicking on Analyze Results allows you to view rankings of the authors, journals, etc. for your set of results.

For further help:

• What is Cited Reference Search? (from Web of Science)
• How to do a Cited Reference Search (from Web of Science)

Google Scholar (GS) covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research and from a wide variety of academic publishers and professional societies, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Each Google Scholar search result contains bibliographic information, such as the title, author names, and source of publication. At the end of the search result is a “Cited by” link, which will display a list of articles and documents that have cited the document originally retrieved in the search. Note that this only includes resources indexed by Google Scholar . There have been some criticisms of Google Scholar  Cited References, such as:

• GS includes some non-scholarly citations.
• It is not clear exactly which scholarly resources are included in GS .
• GS does not perform well for older publications.
• GS is not updated as often as WoS .
• GS may find the same citing work more than once and count them more than once in its total. It's important to go through the list of citing works to remove duplicates.

How to find Cited References in Google Scholar :

• Go to Google Scholar
• Enter search terms, such as an individual author or a particular article citation.
• Look for the “Cited by” link at the bottom of the citation.
• Click on the “Cited by” link to retrieve citations to the original resource.
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• Last Updated: Sep 17, 2024 5:14 PM
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Q. How do I find the impact factor of a journal?

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Answered By: Elizabeth Galoozis (she/her) Last Updated: Jul 14, 2022     Views: 50303

You can look up the impact factor of a journal through the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database. A journal's impact factor is a measure of how often 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. Not every journal will have an impact factor, but there are other ways to measure impact to a field.

In Journal Citation Reports, enter the title of the journal or browse journals by rank or category. 

[Screenshot of a yellow arrow selecting a "Browse by Journal" search in the Journal Citation Reports database]

Clicking on a journal title will give additional details about the calculation. For example, here is an explanation of how impact factor was calculated for the journal Social Work Research .

[Screenshot of an explanation of a journal impact factor calculation]

Use the "All Years" tab to access key metrics and additional data for the current year and all prior years for this journal.

[Screenshot of yellow arrow highlighting the "All Years" tab when searching]

Since impact factors vary widely by discipline, it is helpful to get a baseline for your discipline by searching for subject area (category). Impact factor data is only available for journals indexed by Web of Science.

[Screenshot of search for journal impact factor by subject area]

For more information on citation counts and Impact factors, visit: Evaluating Information Sources: Impact Factors and Citation Counts

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