IS News Blog

Please be advised that scheduled maintenance of Web of Knowledge databases will take place beginning on Saturday, 27^th April 2013 at 23:00 and ending by Monday, 29^th April 2013 at 02:00.

Web of Knowledge databases may not be available during this period. This will affect:

- Web of Science (Citation databases and Conference Proceedings index)

- BIOSIS Citation Index

- Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports are useful tools which can help you to identify the journals with the greatest total cites and highest impact in your field, and journals which are relevant to your research and in which it would be desirable to publish.

 

There are two editions of the Journal Citation Reports – the Science edition contains data about 8000 science and technology journals and the Social Sciences edition contains data about 2600 social science journals.

 

The 2010 edition of the Journal Citation Reports has just been published and is available to staff and students of the University of Stirling. To access this resource please log into the Portal and select Journal Citation Reports from the A-Z list of online resources. An online tutorial is available: http://scientific.thomson.com/tutorials/jcr4/

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

 

Each 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.
• Eigenfactor^TM Metrics, comprised of the Eigenfactor^TM Score and Article Influence^TM 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

Additional useful metrics have been added to Journal Citation Reports in their recent update. (Reminder of what the Journal Citation Reports are).

 

New metrics added:

 

• 5 year Impact Factor: considered a better measure for journals in slower moving areas (traditional Impact Factors are based on 2 years of data).

 

• Summary Rank in Category: displays journal ranking across multiple subject categories.  Showing ranking across categories provides a broader context to the Impact Factors.

 

• Box Plots displays by Category: displays box plots of impact factors for each subject category a journal appears in – this graphically shows the dispersion of impacts.

 

• Integration of Eigen Factor Score and Article Influence: rather than just considering all journals that cite articles to be of equal weight, these measures give more weight if citations are made by more “influential” journals. 

 

• Analyses of Journal Self Cites: displays the contribution of journal self cites to impact factor calculations – this helps identify journals with a narrow focus.  Tables show how many of a journal’s cites are self cites and the percent that contribute to the Impact Factor calculation.

 

 

Many of these metrics can seem rather complicated until you see some examples: the 9 minute narrated training session created by Thomson Reuters is very helpful, see: https://www.brainshark.com/brainshark/vu/view.asp?pi=737242501

 

 

To access the Journal Citation Reports, logon to the University Portal, and select Journal Citation Reports from the “A-Z list of online resources”, then from the Web of Knowledge gateway choose the “Select a Database” tab. 

 

 

Clare Allan

Subject Librarian

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

 

Each edition of Journal Citations Report is published annually in the Autumn following the year of coverage – and the latest 2007 edition has recently become available.

 

There are two different editions:  the Science Edition covering more than 5,900 science journals, and the Social Sciences Edition, covering more than 1,700 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

 

There are plans to enhance Journal Citation Reports and during February new metrics will be added:

 

• Five-Year Impact Factor
• ‘Rank in Category’ tables
• Box Plots
• Journal Self Citations

 

 

To access the Journal Citation Reports, logon to the University Portal, and select Journal Citation Reports from the “A-Z list of online resources”, then from the Web of Knowledge gateway choose the “Select a Database” tab. 

 

 

Clare Allan

Subject Librarian