Latest edition of Journal Citation Reports now available

clare JCR, Library News

Journal Citation Reports are an immensely useful tool and can help with identifying:

– journals with the greatest total cites and the highest impact in your field

– journals relevant to your research and those in which it would be desirable to publish

 

image of bookEach edition of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is published annually following the year of coverage – and the latest 2008 edition has recently become available.

 

There are two different editions:  the Science Edition covering more than 6,400 science journals, and the Social Sciences Edition, covering more than 1,800 social sciences journals.

 

As usual the latest edition includes:

 

  • Journal Impact Factors: the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year. Helps evaluate a journal’s relative importance in a given field
  • Total Cites: tells you which journals are most frequently cited. Journals are ranked by the number of times they are cited in a given year; gives an indication of assessment of journals by scholars who have responded to the items published

 

Recently, extra useful metrics have been added:

 

  • Five-Year Impact Factor – Gives a broader range of citation activity for a more informative snapshot over time. For journals in subjects where citation activity continues to rise through several years, this allows more of their total citation activity to be included in a critical performance metric.
  • EigenfactorTM Metrics, comprised of the EigenfactorTM Score and Article InfluenceTM Score, are designed to reflect the prestige and citation influence of journals by considering scholarly literature as a network of journal-to-journal relationships.   Find out more about how to interpret these scores at: http://www.eigenfactor.org/faq.htm   
  • Graphic Displays of Impact Factor “Box Plots” – A graphic interpretation of how a journal ranks in different categories.
  • Rank-in-Category Tables for Journals Covering Multiple Disciplines – Allows a journal to be seen in the context of multiple categories at a glance rather than only a single one.
  • Journal “Self Citations” – An analysis of journal self citations and their contribution to the Journal Impact Factor calculation.

 

To find out more read the JCR Fact Sheet.

 

To search JCR, logon to the University Portal, and then from the “A-Z list of online resources” select Journal Citation Reports. 

 

JCR is also integrated with Web of Science, so after a search on Web of Science when viewing an individual article record you can link directly to JCR to quickly check the source journal’s impact factor, and other metrics.

 

Clare Allan
Library Liaison and Training Team