How to find a Journal Impact Factor

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1 Follow us on How to find a Journal Impact Factor Journal Impact Factors are just one way to measure the performance of a journal compared to others in the same field. Checking this before submitting articles to a journal could influence who to approach. Getting published in a high ranking journal can raise your profile as a researcher and increase your citations. The Journal Impact Factor is the measure of the number of times a journal (not an article or individual) has been cited. The more a journal is cited, the greater its Impact Factor. The Impact Factor of journals in different disciplines will vary considerably because they have different practices of publishing and citing. Therefore, you cannot compare Impact Factors of journals from different subject areas. To find a Journal Impact Factor, you can use a tool called Journal Citations Report (JCR), which calculates this metric from data within Web of Science. If a journal does not have an Impact Factor it may have a Journal Rank Indicator (the equivalent metric for journals found in Scopus). Have a look at the helpguide, A Guide to Journal Ranking Tools for more information. To get the best out of this resource, register with Web of Science for an account and make sure to log in. Go to Library Search. Click on the link for A-Z databases. Click on the J tab. Click Journal Citations Report - JCR from the list displayed.

2 You can also use this alternative method to access the same location: Within the A-Z list of databases, click on the W tab. Choose Web of Science (previously Web of Knowledge). Click on Journal Citation Reports. You will be directed to a new session in JCR. If this does not load click Continue. Register and sign in To use certain functions within the JCR database, it is necessary to register an account so that you can sign in to the service. Click the Sign In option at the top of the page and select Register. Enter the details required for registration. You may wish to use your Northumbria University address to receive any notifications. Once you have entered your details, click Continue to complete the process. You will receive a confirmation message once registration is complete. Click Sign In to sign in to the database.

3 Journal Impact Factors by category (subject) The Journals By Rank tab is displayed by default. Select the latest year available from the Select JCR Year drop-down list. Click Select Categories, then scroll down and select a category. Some subjects such as Psychology have several categories so you can select more than one category if necessary. Close the Select Categories box when finished by clicking the arrow to the right of the box title. Step 4 Click Submit. The journal titles matching your criteria are displayed and are sorted on the basis of their Impact Factor. Step 5 The larger the orange circle the greater the Impact Factor. By hovering over the orange circles, the impact factor is shown. Step 6 Scroll through the arrows to see the Impact Factors of all titles. Step 7 Change the indicators listed and display others by clicking on Customize Indicators. (You do have to be logged in to your Web of Science account to customise.) Step 8 Tick the boxes next to the indicators you wish to display and click Save.

4 Step 9 The new listings will appear. By clicking on the table headings it is possible to rank the journals in different ways. 0 Click on the journal title to see the data held on that title. 1 It is possible to see the calculation for any of the figures by clicking on them. This will give a pop-up window containing the data. Journal Impact Factor of a specific journal title It is also possible to look up a specific journal by title. Type the title in the search box (it can be a whole or partial title). Click the Search button to look for the required information. From the results displayed, click the title of the journal that you wish to view. Step 4 This shows all the data held on this title. Please note that data on: 5 Year Impact Factor Eigenfactor Article Influence Score is not available prior to 2007 as it was not added to JCR until Data on Normalized Eigenfactor is not available prior to 2012.

5 Step 5 It is also possible to directly link from JCR to the journal information in Ulrichs (to which the University subscribes). This allows for further analysis. Step 6 Underneath the table of data in JCR are further analysis tools. Source Data shows the figures and the other options in the left-hand menu give graphical representations. You can click on the Help link at the top of the page within Web of Science for further information.