Skip to Main Content

Strategic Publishing, Research Impact & Researcher Profiles: Journal Level Metrics

This guide covers scholarly publishing strategies, how to choose a journal, discusses Open Access publishing models, how to evaluate research impact, and provides tips around managing researcher profiles

Journal level metrics

 

Journal metrics are intended to provide an indication of a journal's influence. It is important to realise that this indicator in no way reflects the quality of individual articles or researchers published within the journal. The most common journal metrics are: 

  • Citescore
  • SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 
  • Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 
  • Journal Impact Factor (JIF) 

Other often cited journal metrics use quartile ranking, which indicates where a journal is placed within its field.

 

Note: Publishers develop their metrics based solely on the journals found within their own databases and, therefore, cannot be compared across databases. 

CiteScore, SJR and SNIP

 

CiteScore, SJR and SNIP are Scopus-based indicators. 

  • CiteScore: It is the average citations per document (calculated annually) that a title receives in Scopus over a three-year period. Only use CiteScore to compare journals in the same field. 
  • SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): It expresses the average number of weighted citations per document. Note that SJR weights each citation differently, counting for more citation scores from a high-SJR source than a citation from a low-SJR source. 
  • Source Normalized Impact per Publication (SNIP): It measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. SNIP is derived by dividing a journal's citation count per paper by the citation potential in its subject field. It corrects for differences in citation practices between scientific fields.

To calculate CiteScore, SJR and SNIP, use Scopus Sources. 

Journal Impact Factor

 

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a Web of Science-based indicator.

JIF is the average number of citations that articles from the journal published in the past two years (e.g., 2021-2022) have been cited in the current JCR year (e.g., 2023). It is calculated year by year. Only use JIF to compare journals in the same field. 

To locate JIF, use Journal Citation Reports (JCR).