Journal Rankings and Impact Factors

Citation indexing and the analysis of citation data is used to develop journal impact factor (JIF), Altmetrics, H-index and SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR), which are used to assess core titles and key journals in academic disciplines.

JIF for a journal is calculated based on a three-year period, and can be considered to be the average number of times published papers are cited up to two years after publication.

The h-index serves as an alternative to more traditional journal impact factor metrics in the evaluation of the impact of the work of a particular researcher. Because only the most highly cited articles contribute to the h-index, its determination is a simpler process. Hirsch has demonstrated that h has high predictive value for whether a scientist has won honors like National Academy membership or the Nobel Prize. The h-index grows as citations accumulate and thus it depends on the "academic age" of a researcher.  h-index indicators can be found in the SCImago Journal & Country Rank database.

The SJR is a measure of a journal's impact, influence or prestige. It expresses the average number of weighted citations received in the selected year by the documents published in the journal in the three previous years.

Altmetrics can be found in Cabell's, they are known to compliment traditional citation based metrics. They include usage based metrics, social media reference and behavioral analysis.

Journal ranking studies can be found in many places, but in no one single source. A search in a web search engine using the terms "journal ranking" and an area of study is useful. You can also search in any journals database for published journal ranking studies.

Journal impact factors most often quoted are published by Refinitiv, the publishers of the Web of Science, in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The UHV Library does not subscribe to the JCR.