Journals Citation Reports is a resource released annually, containing metrics that help you understand citation patterns in different academic fields. One such metric is the Journals impact factor Impact Factor score, which allows you to see how highly cited the average article published in a particular journals impact factor is relative to others in its field or discipline. When considering this metric, it is critical to understand that Journals impact factor Impact Factor scores pertain to journals impact factors, and thus represent averages. To calculate a journals impact factor’s score, we first aggregate all of the article-level Web of Science Core Collection citation data for the journals impact factor. Using data from the two years prior to the date of the JCR edition, we calculate Journals impact factor Impact Factor by dividing the total number of citations to items published in the journals impact factor by the number of articles and reviews it published during that same time span. When you are thinking about Journals impact factor Impact factor scores, remember that different academic fields have different patterns of citation activity. So what might be considered a high score in one Subject Category might differ from what would be considered a high score in another. In JCR, the Journals impact factor Impact Factor for a journals impact factor is available from the Journals impact factors by Rank tab or from a journals impact factor’s profile page. To view a journals impact factor ranking by category, select the category from the filter panel on the left and click Submit. For example, I want to view all journals impact factors in behavioral sciences. By default, journals impact factors are sorted by Journals impact factor Impact Factor. To change the sort order, click on the column of another indicator, for example, Total Cites. Total Cites is a count of the raw number of citations journals impact factors received from articles published in 2016. Animal Behaviour comes out on top with over 24,000 citations. The problem with this number is that it is biased in favor of age. Although the citations all came from material published in 2016, they could be to articles published at any time. This means that journals impact factors with large backfiles are bigger targets.
Because they have more volumes and issues, their chances of being cited increase. One thing the Journals impact factor Impact Factor score is designed to do is to eliminate this bias by only taking the prior two years into consideration. When I sort by Journals impact factor Impact Factor, Trends in Cognitive Sciences is the top journals impact factor. To explore the Journals impact factor Impact Factor calculation from this view, click on the indicator. To navigate to a full journals impact factor profile, click on the journals impact factor name. We’ll take a closer look at the journals impact factor “Cortex.” From the profile view, you can explore Journals impact factor Impact Factor scores from the current edition and previous years. Journals impact factor Impact Factor measures the average impact of an article published in a given journals impact factor. To calculate Journals impact factor Impact Factor, we tally the number of citations the journals impact factor received in that JCR data year to its published items from the previous two years. We divide that by the number of citable items the journals impact factor published in that same time span. We consider citable items to be articles and reviews. Thus, in the Journals impact factor Impact Factor denominator, we’re only counting those document types, and excluding things like letters and editorials. We only count the documents types that are likely to be cited and have an impact on the literature. The numerator, which represents the incoming citations, does not make this distinction. We count all of the citations the journals impact factor receives to its two year output, even if the citation is to a letter or editorial. Note that the Journals impact factor Impact Factor denominator is hyperlinked. Clicking on the denominator takes me to a document list showing the citable items—the articles and the reviews. If desired, I can choose to view just the articles or just the reviews. Clicking on the title of a citable item takes me to the full record page of that publication in Web of Science Core Collection. Journals impact factor Impact Factor is the simple ratio of all citations the journals impact factor receives divided by the number of items expected to be cited.
Journals impact factor Impact Factor scores help you compare journals impact factors to assess the relative quality of different publications. As you make comparisons, note that every journals impact factor in the JCR is assigned at least one subject category, but some journals impact factors are assigned more than one. For example, Cortex has been assigned two categories: behavioral sciences and neurosciences. Each journals impact factor only gets one Journals impact factor Impact Factor score, but what that score means may vary across categories when a journals impact factor has more than one. Let’s take a look at the Rank section. Based on the table, I can easily see that this journals impact factor’s Impact Factor score of 4.279 ranks it number 4 in a field of 51 journals impact factors in behavioral sciences, and number 61 in a field of 258 neurosciences journals impact factors. This added context provides a useful way to get a true picture of this journals impact factor’s relationship to other publications. While Journals impact factor Impact Factor is a useful metric, Clarivate Analytics does not recommend that you depend solely upon citation data in your journals impact factor evaluations. Please review our article, “Using Journals impact factor Citation Reports Wisely,” which can be found in the Help file, to learn about applying JCR metrics. Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review, and we recommend you pay careful attention to the many conditions that can influence citation rates, such as language, journals impact factor history and format, publication schedule, and subject specialty.