This year’s edition of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is now available. JCR is a very useful tool that lists Journal Impact Factors and other journal metrics.
This release:
- 70% more content – partly due to inclusion of journal titles from the Arts & Humanities Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
- New metric introduced: the Journal Citation Indicator
- Arts & Humanities titles and ESCI titles are not given a Journal Impact Factor instead they have the new Journal Citation Indicator
- Now includes Early Access articles
- Revamped user interface – interactive visualisations, simpler navigation and contextual help make the JCR easier to use
JCR can help you:
– identify journals with the highest citation impact in your field
– find the most influential journals in which to publish
Each edition of JCR is published annually following the year of coverage – so the latest 2021 edition covers 2020 data. The Reports monitor and exclude any journals that demonstrate anomalous citation behaviour.
Journal Citation Indicator
The Journal Citation Indicator is a new field-normalized measurement of journal citation impact based on the previous 3 years of data (the Journal Impact Factor uses only 2 years).
All journals in the JCR will have a Journal Citation Indictor (JCI) score, with the aim that it will be a single journal-level metric that can be easily interpreted and compared across disciplines. (Although there has already been some criticism. For example: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/journal-impact-factor-gets-sibling-adjusts-scientific-field and https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/05/24/journal-citation-indicator/).
A journal that has an average performance will have a JCI of 1.0. If the journal has performed well, it will have a number greater than 1.0. For example, a journal with a JCI of 2.0 performed two times better than the global average. Whereas a journal with a JCI of 0.5 performed half as well.
Help using JCR
Support materials are available:
- JCR Video and guides: https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/support/support-jcr/
- JCR LibGuide: http://clarivate.libguides.com/jcr
- JCR Online Recorded Training: https://videos.webofsciencegroup.com/categories/journal-citation-reports
- JCR Reference Guide: Reference Guide: https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/06/JCR_2021_Reference_Guide.pdf
Access and Searching JCR
To access JCR:
- Logon to the University Portal
- Select the Resources tab
- Select A-Z list of online resources, then J, then Journal Citation Reports
The old Journal Citation Reports interface will remain available until the end of 2021 (there is a link on the home page of the new interface, under the Products option in the top righthand corner).
Clare Allan
Senior Research Librarian