Impact Score Alternatives
Some of the other metrics which can help you judge the Journal impact are Citescore, h-Index, mention and share of Journal articles on social media, Downloads, Views, etc.
Citescore
Citescore is another commonly used metric used like an impact factor, to measure journal impact in Scopus. It measures a yearly average number of citations to recently published articles in that Journal. Citescore was launched in December 2016 by Elsevier.
CiteScore metric combines eight different indicators: CiteScore, CiteScore Percentile, CiteScore Rank, Citation Count, CiteScore Quartiles, CiteScore Tracker, Document Count and Percentage Cited.
Citescore Calculations
Citescore is defined as the ratio of the number of citations a journal receives in the latest four years (Including the year of calculation) to the number of publications (published documents) of that Journal in those four years.
Important Facts About Citescore
- Citescore calculations are done annually and hence show the average number of citations for the entire calendar year. Moreover, its estimates are updated each month and therefore provides the latest performance indicators of a particular Journal.
- Citescore cannot be compared between subject fields because its value does not include field normalization. To compare the Journals of the same subject categories or domains, one should use metrics like SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) or SNIP as these metric are field normalized.
h-Index
The h-index is another way of measuring the productivity or impact of the Journal. The h-index is defined as the maximum value of h such that the given Journal has published h papers, and each of them is cited for at least h number of times in a specific time.
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is another commonly used metric to measure the scholarly influence or impact of the Journal by accounting for the number of cites/citations and the prestige of the citing journals.
It is based on the concept called eigenvector centrality, which is commonly used in network theory. This metric is a size-independent measure that ranks journals based on their average prestige per article.
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) considers the weightage of the total number of citations received in a discipline while calculating a journal's impact. This method of impact calculation normalizes for differences in citation practices between fields so that a single citation is given greater importance or values where citations are less frequent or common in that field.
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.
Ways to Increase Impact Score of Your Journal
We have now understood the definition of the Impact Score, its calculation method, the importance of the Impact Score, and how to find it. Now, we will go through the ways through which we can increase the Impact Score of a Journal.
Following are some ways that can help to increase the Impact Score of a Journal. Some of these ideas are based on theory, some on practice and few on experience. These methods can help you get more citations for your journal, improve its quality and increase its prominence.
Let us now scroll these go through these methods, and understand what they have in store for us.
Target the right audience
Designing the products keeping the intended target base in mind always helps. This method applies here also. If your articles or research topics have a dedicated area to focus on, chances of them being cited by the scientists increase. If the research area is vague and not specific, the researcher or scientist may not find anything of use.
The focus might be on society, a particular group, scientists, teachers or anybody. Just remember to have a target audience.
Sometimes Peer-Review helps!
This is a known fact that if someone with a good reputation in your field gives a statement for your work, that work automatically gets few stars of appreciation.
In the research field, work that is peer-reviewed often comes up with better quality. This work has gained more trust and hence, gets cited more.
Taking advantage of affiliations
Organizations or groups with innovative and diverse research topics, more originality, and a high number of publications are generally cited more than others. They have an excellent probability of showing up in the references thereby, increasing their citation.
If your journal doesn't belong to a very famous authority, one can try for affiliation with a known and reputed organization.
Add topic-wise description for quick scanning
A small description of the various headings like abstract, hypotheses, key findings and observations, inference, conclusion etc., will give an insight to the reader of the article. This will help in a quick scan of the article and increase its chances of getting cited.
Add a descriptive scope
As stated earlier, if the title and scope are descriptive, readers tend to get a better understanding of the article. This will bring more traffic and increase the citation.
By a descriptive scope, we mean that it should clearly define the area of the research and the methods that have been undertaken to come up with the research.
Diversify your list of topics covered
A single topic may have many branches and sub-branches, giving rise to a diverse range of topics in that area. Sometimes, these ideas don't strike anyone, and this can be of much help if encouraged by telling them. This will attract more authors. The result will also be a diversified one.
Develop new article types to attract a diverse range of authors.
Keep flexible submission options
Also, if the submission is getting accepted in multiple formats, people tend to submit more. Sometimes, authors are not comfortable with a particular format and do not choose a journal for publication. If there is leniency in this, it can help.
Promotion of few articles might help
Advertisement and marketing is a key these days to reach more audience. Often articles that have been published long back might find their relevance in the present time. The editor or the committee should keep track of such topics and promote them. This will increase the citations of the article. One thing that this activity requires is time and effort from the team.
Make your articles easily reachable
In today's scenario, where things are available easily, without much effort, if you ask for a lot of details or a heavy price from the readers, there are very few chances of your articles being cited by the authors.
It takes few minutes for the author to scan an article and if there are fewer hindrances maybe, in terms of article fee or filling up details, the article will be read and cited more.
A journal can always have some free articles to attract readers and citations.
Be real! Show your true self
Few things cannot be pretended. They have to be real. For example, take the case of the affiliations of the journal, the deciding committee, the Editorial Board Members, Peer Reviewers. If these things are mentioned and include high ranking individuals, they will attract the authors to publish in your journal.
Keep your ethics and transparency high
A clean, ethical policy will always help in giving credibility to any organization. In this way, people trust your organization to submit their articles. There are organizations like the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) that help in improving the trustworthiness of a journal. Joining such a committee will boost your credibility.
Develop a Niche
In case your journal targets a specific set of authors, it is again very good. This way, you will attract a specific set of topics for the journal. There will be a niche in your journal, and unnecessary diversions can be avoided. Instead of a wide range of issues, a specific set will give your journal a reputation for that research area.
Flexible Review Process
The review process and schedule are a few of the main criteria for selecting a journal for publication. Sometimes, the publication is a part of their curriculum or their job, and it will then require a deadline. Also, few topics are relevant in the present time and may become outdated if they don't get a chance to get published. That is why there must be a quick and robust review system with a shorter turnaround time.
Keep user-friendly ads
Having advertisements is always a good income idea. But one thing needs to be ensured that it doesn't affect the user experience. The reader should not get distracted from the primary task, or the placement of the ads should be such that it doesn't disturb or irritate the reader.
Publish Review Articles
Review articles of good literature can help the authors quickly compare various types of research carried out. It might be of interest to them and thus, attract more citations. Also, articles having trending and good topics can be combined together and published. This will act as a one-stop point for the authors and readers to read, understand and cite.
Try using SEO in articles
One tool that helps you rank on top in search engine results is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). With this method, you can optimize your content, which will lead to more citations for your journal. Optimization of academic articles is called Academic Search Engine Optimization (ASEO). It ensures that the article is crawled and ranks high in search results.
These tips might be applicable to a few journals and might not work for a few. There is no compulsion to follow all the above-mentioned methods. Select what best applies to you.
Our Attempt at this idea...
The ideas that we have mentioned here are based on our knowledge and experience. We are still learning and will continue to add on to this list as and when we come up with something new.
Credits and Sources
- Journal Impact Factor, https://clarivate.com/
- Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), https://www.scimagojr.com/
- Find Impact Factor
- Impact Factor: The Complete Guide
Useful Tools
- Convert Case Online
- Text Compare
- NPI Lookup- Search and Find NPI Number (NPI Registry)
FAQs
How do I find the impact factor of a journal online? ›
- After searching for your journal title (see above), from the journal profile page, click on the down-arrow under JCR YEAR:
- From the menu, click on All Years:
- Scroll down to see the table of data per year. The Journal Impact Factor is in the second column:
The impact factor of a particular journal can be found in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database.
Is an impact factor of 3.7 good? ›In most fields, the impact factor of 10 or greater is considered an excellent score while 3 is flagged as good and the average score is less than 1.
Which journal has highest impact factor? ›- CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians – Impact Factor: 286.13.
- Lancet – Impact Factor: 202.731.
- New England Journal of Medicine – Impact Factor: 176.079.
- JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association – Impact Factor: 157.335.
An impact factor of 10 can be considered excellent – although unreachable in many categories – as in 2020 only 3.65% of the journals had an impact factor of 10 or higher.
Do all journals have impact factor? ›Reasons why a journal might not have an Impact Factor include: It may cover an Arts & Humanities subject, which isn't listed in either the Social Sciences Citation Index or the Sciences Citation Index (the databases which Impact Factors are based on).
What is Scopus impact factor? ›Scopus is citation database that gives quality measure for each title while impact factor reflects the yearly average number of citation of articles published in the last two years in a given journal.
What is Elsevier impact factor? ›The Journal Impact Factor is published each year by Clarivate Analytics. It is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited during the preceding two years.
Is an impact factor of 6 GOOD? ›The top 5% of journals have impact factors approximately equal to or greater than 6 (610 journals or 4.9% of the journals tracked by JCR).
What is a Tier 1 journal? ›Tier 1. High category (3.5-4) Peer-reviewed publications in one of the following: • Journal with Impact factor that falls in the top 25 percentile ranking based on the impact. factor within the subject, discipline, or sub-disciplinary category (refer to APPENDIX.
How is impact factor calculated? ›
The Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years. An Impact Factor of 1.0 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited one time.
What is the meaning of Q1 Q2 Q3/Q4 journal? ›Q1 is occupied by the top 25% of journals in the list; Q2 is occupied by journals in the 25 to 50% group; Q3 is occupied by journals in the 50 to 75% group and Q4 is occupied by journals in the 75 to 100% group. The most prestigious journals within a subject area are those occupying the first quartile, Q1.
How do you know if a journal is high impact? ›You can either refer to the Scopus® database to find the impact score of the journal. The data from the Scopus® database can also be found at resurchify.com. You can find the impact score of thousands of journals on this website.
What is a 4 star journal? ›The idea that research could be described as '4*' came from the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF). Four-star research is 'world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour'.
How do you find the impact factor of 2022? ›To calculate the 2022 Journal Impact Factor for a journal, all citations to its 2020 and 2021 articles must be counted. After dividing the total by the number of articles cited in the journal in those years, we arrive at the JIF for the current year (2022), which is published in 2023.
Who are the top 5 journal publishers? ›- Academic Press (Elsevier)
- Cambridge University Press.
- Oxford University Press.
- Routledge.
- Sage Publications.
- University of Chicago Press.
- Wiley.
The JCR Impact Factor 2022 release date is 30th June 2022. Journal Citation Report is released in the month of June, every year. The date has been announced as 30th June 2022, Thursday, 2:00 am.
What is a good impact score? ›Impact scores run from 10 to 90, where 10 is best. Generally speaking, impact/priority scores of 10 to 30 are most likely to be funded; scores between 31 and 45 might be funded; scores greater than 46 are rarely funded.
How many citations is good for a paper? ›With 10 or more citations, your work is now in the top 24% of the most cited work worldwide; this increased to the top 1.8% as you reach 100 or more citations. Main take home message: the average citation per manuscript is clearly below 10!
What is the difference between impact score and impact factor? ›A primary difference between these two metrics is the period of time for the calculation; while the Journal Impact Factor calculates the metric using the two previous years as a basis for the citation count, CiteScore uses a three-year period.
Is impact factor really important? ›
Impact factor is commonly used to evaluate the relative importance of a journal within its field and to measure the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular time period. Journal which publishes more review articles will get highest IFs.
What if a journal doesnt have an impact factor? ›No impact factor means that very few people read your work and perhaps no other researchers will ever cite it.
Is impact factor reliable? ›The impact factor of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. As such, the impact factor has been used to judge the relative importance of a journal in its field. However, impact factors are not without controversy.
Is Elsevier and Scopus the same? ›Scopus is an abstract and indexing database with full-text links that is produced by the Elsevier Co.
What is a good h index? ›What is a Good h-Index? Hirsch reckons that after 20 years of research, an h-index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, and 60 is truly exceptional.
Which journal category is best? ›HJRS categorizes a research journal into three categories – W, X and Y-- where W is the highest recognized category followed by X and Y within each subject area and its associated sub-categories.
What is the difference between h-index and impact factor? ›The h index is used to evaluate a researcher's or an author's scientific productivity based on the number of published research papers and their citations. In contrast, the impact factor evaluates the total number of articles cited within the Journal during the previous two years.
What is Scopus index? ›What is Scopus indexed journal? Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database that was launched in 2004 to improve institutions' and professionals' progress in sciences and healthcare. It is known to be the best abstraction and citation database for peer-reviewed journals.
Is it hard to publish in Elsevier? ›However, because Elsevier journals have a strong reputation to maintain, they also have strict standards for publishing. Even seemingly minor problems with an article can be a cause for immediate rejection of a submitted article without peer review.
What is highest impact factor? ›- Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations of the journal by the sum of its citable publications during the previous two consecutive years. ...
- Logically, the more journal is cited, the more people trust and rely on its information validity.
What is an average impact factor? ›
An Impact Factor of 1.0 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited one time. An Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited two and a half times.
What is H index of a journal? ›The h index is a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an author's scholarly output and performance; measures quantity with quality by comparing publications to citations. The h index corrects for the disproportionate weight of highly cited publications or publications that have not yet been cited.
What is an A Star journal? ›STAR Journals aims to provide highly quality and informative journals by creating an open source consortium where individuals can publish their findings in STAR Journals; peer reviewed by academic expert's editorial board members.
What is C category journal? ›This is a maintenance category, used for maintenance of the Wikipedia project. It is not part of the encyclopedia and contains non-article pages, or groups articles by status rather than subject.
How do I find a Q1 journal? ›- Enter the journal name.
- Give Search Button.
- Check the journal name.
- The page will open with Journal Impact factor & Citation Distribution.
- Select all years And click the rank.
- Browse by category.
- Select Journals by rank.
- Select the quartile in any one Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 ,Click submit.
The process whereby the impact or "quality" of an article is assessed by counting the number of times other authors mention it in their work. Citation analysis invovles counting the number of times an article is cited by other works to measure the impact of a publicaton or author.
How do you convert impact factor to CiteScore? ›The Impact Factor is calculated as all incoming citations divided by the number of regular research articles: IF=(CF+CR)/NR.
How do you determine the quality of a journal? ›- The Journal should have a dedicated website.
- Check the Editorial board members and their contact details.
- Check the past issues whether they are published regularly or not.
- Check the Publisher's address and the Contact details written on the journal's website.
For checking of journal quartiles (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) for the indexed journals in the ISI/SSCI one can check Master journal list and Journal citation report. You can search from the web of science, Journal Citation Reports.
How do I check my Scopus indexed journals? ›- Type the URL in your address bar: ...
- Select the Title, Publisher, or ISSN number of the targeted journal to find Scoups indexing.
- Give the targeted journal name in the Title field. ...
- Finally, you will get the detail about the journal with all database coverage.
Is IEEE access good? ›
The overall rank of IEEE Access is 4581. According to SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), this journal is ranked 0.927. SCImago Journal Rank is an indicator, which measures the scientific influence of journals.
How do I find the impact factor of a research paper? ›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.
How do you find the h-index of a paper? ›The h-index is a measure of the number of publications published (productivity), as well as how often they are cited. h-index = the number of publications with a citation number greater than or equal to h. For example, 15 publications cited 15 times or more, is a h-index of 15.
What is an impact factor number? ›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.
What is AA * journal? ›Launched in 1981 by the AA School's then chairman Alvin Boyarsky, the journal appears twice a year and is sent out to members of the Architectural Association, individual subscribers and is distributed to a global network of bookshops.
What is a 3 * publication? ›Four star: Quality that is world-leading in originality, significance and rigour. Three star: Quality that is internationally excellent in originality, significance and rigour but which falls short of the highest standards of excellence.
Is Mdpi a good journal? ›Most recent answer
The MDPI has become a business machine, they lack rigorous peer review and publish articles with no contributions and novelty at all. Most of the papers are either reports on a specific topic or replicas. The only thing they care about is money, that's all.
You can find metrics for a specific journal or compare journal metrics for items indexed in Scopus by clicking on the "compare journals" link. On the Compare journals search page search for journals you'd like to compare, by name, by publisher or by specific ISSN number.
How do I find the impact factor of an author? ›- Access the Scopus database. ...
- On the homepage, toggle from Document search to Author search. ...
- Click on the name that matches your affiliation. ...
- You will then see an Author Details page.
Check the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to find the most recent impact factors of journals. Journal Citation Reports or JCR (just as Web of Science a product of Thomson Reuters) lists impact factors of journals. You can search for a specific journal or a group of journals by subject.
What is Elsevier impact factor? ›
The Journal Impact Factor is published each year by Clarivate Analytics. It is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited during the preceding two years.
Is impact factor and Scopus the same? ›Scopus is citation database that gives quality measure for each title while impact factor reflects the yearly average number of citation of articles published in the last two years in a given journal. SCOPUS is an Indexing database. Impact factor is calculated based on the number of papers published and cited.
How do I find the impact factor of a research paper? ›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.
How do I find the index of a journal? ›- Type the journal title on the search box below “Search for journals” and click on the search button.
- On the search result page, the indexed journal shows “Full” in the “Participation level” column.
- You can also check if the latest volume is present in the PMC archive by clicking on the journal title hypertext.
A way to identify the impact of an article is to see how often the article has been cited. In general, the greater the amount of citations that an article attracts, the more significant this article is to the respective discipline.
Do all journals have impact factor? ›Reasons why a journal might not have an Impact Factor include: It may cover an Arts & Humanities subject, which isn't listed in either the Social Sciences Citation Index or the Sciences Citation Index (the databases which Impact Factors are based on).
What is research impact score? ›An Impact Factor is one measure of the relative importance of a journal, individual publication, or researcher to literature and research. Journal impact factors, citations to publications, h-index of researchers are used to measure the importance and impact of research.
When journals impact factor for 2022 will release? ›The JCR Impact Factor 2022 release date is 30th June 2022. Journal Citation Report is released in the month of June, every year. The date has been announced as 30th June 2022, Thursday, 2:00 am.
What is h-index of a journal? ›The h index is a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an author's scholarly output and performance; measures quantity with quality by comparing publications to citations. The h index corrects for the disproportionate weight of highly cited publications or publications that have not yet been cited.
What is a good h-index? ›What is a Good h-Index? Hirsch reckons that after 20 years of research, an h-index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, and 60 is truly exceptional.
What is the difference between H index and impact factor? ›
The h index is used to evaluate a researcher's or an author's scientific productivity based on the number of published research papers and their citations. In contrast, the impact factor evaluates the total number of articles cited within the Journal during the previous two years.
What is Scopus index? ›What is Scopus indexed journal? Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database that was launched in 2004 to improve institutions' and professionals' progress in sciences and healthcare. It is known to be the best abstraction and citation database for peer-reviewed journals.
Is it hard to publish in Elsevier? ›However, because Elsevier journals have a strong reputation to maintain, they also have strict standards for publishing. Even seemingly minor problems with an article can be a cause for immediate rejection of a submitted article without peer review.