Journal Citation Reports – The Impact Factor Welcome to a brief training presentation on the Impact Factor in the JCR. This presentation is best viewed in IE version 5.0. The power point slides used in this presentation can be downloaded from the “Attachments” tab on the BrainShark viewer.

This presentation will discuss A basic introduction to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Using the JCR to find a category of journals Ranking journals by Impact Factors in a given category How an Impact Factor is calculated Median and Aggregate Impact Factors for a category of journals Accessing the Impact Factor from the Web of Science This training presentation will discuss: A basic overview of the Journal Citation Report (JCR) Using JCR to find a category of journals Ranking a category of Journals by impact factor How an Impact Factor is calculated Median and aggregate Impact Factors for a category of journals Accessing the impact factor from the Web of Science

Introduction JCR distills citation trend data for 10,000+ journals from more than 25 million cited references indexed by Thomson Reuters every year Science Edition and Social Sciences Edition released annually Science Edition covers 7,200+ journals in 171 subject categories Social Sciences Edition covers 2,100+ journals in 55 subject categories JCR distills citation trend data for from over 7,600 journals from more than 25 million cited references indexed by ISI every year The Science Edition and Social Science Edition of the JCR are released annually (The 2005 Edition will be released in mid 2006) Science Edition covers 5,969 journals in 171 subjects Social Science Edition covers 1,712 journals in 55 subjects For both editions, only journals indexed for the Web of Science are considered.

Access JCR from the Web of Knowledge If your inst. Subscribes to the JCR, you will find it available from the WOK Homepage in the (*) “additional resources tab”. It is listed under “analytical tools” (*) Click on the Journal Citation reports link to move directly to the JCR

Subject Categories From the JCR Homepage, pick either the Science or the Social Science edition. * For this example we will view a group of Journals in the science edition by subject category. You can also view a group of journal by Publisher, or country/territory. Click Submit to view a list of subject categories

View Journal data Next, make a selection of the category you wish to view. You can a select more than one category by holding down the control key. However, it is best to only select multiple categories if they are very similar as citation patterns may vary widely across disciplines. * For this example we will look at the subject category of “Pediatrics.” Next, from the drop down list, select the way you would like to sort the list of journals. The default sort is by “Journal Title”, for this example we will sort by “impact factor.” Then click submit to view a list of journals

Sort journals in the category After clicking “Submit” You will be taken to the journal summary list for the subject category Pediatrics. * We chose to sort by impact factor, so that column is highlighted in yellow. You can also resort by Journal title, total cites, immediacy index, number of articles, cited half-life, 5 Year Impact Factor, Eigenfactor score and ArticleInfluence score The highest impact journal is the “JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY ” with an impact factor of 4.845 For this example we will take a closer look at the “Journal of Pediatrics”, the journal with the fourth highest impact factor. Click on the journal name abbreviation to move to the full journal record.

Full Record Page ‘Journal of Pediatrics” has an impact factor of 4.122. To see how the impact factor was calculated for this journal click directly on the number *

Impact Factor 2008 cites to items published in 2007 and 2006 TR calculates the a journal’s impact factor by: dividing the number of citations made in 2008 to items published in the previous two years (2006 & 2007) by the total number of articles & reviews published in the previous two years When you click on the number you will automatically be moved to the areas displaying exactly what was used to calculate the Impact Factor. The Impact Factor is always calculated by dividing the number of cites in the current JCR year (in this case, 2008) to articles published in the previous two years (2007, 2006) by the number of article published in each of the two previous years. * In the case of Journal of Pediatrics, in 2008, the items published in 2006 were cited 1386 times and the items published in 2007 were cited 840 times for a total of 2226 The Journal or Pediatrics published 305 articles/reviews in 2006 and 235 in 2007 for a total of 540 articles/reviews. To produce the Impact Factor we divide the number of cites by the number of articles. This means that, on average an article/review published in 2006 or 2007 in the Journal of Pediatrics was cited 4.122 times in 2008 2226 540 2008 cites to items published in 2007 and 2006 # of articles published in 2007 and 2006 = 4.122

Journal Rank in categories A journal might have been assigned several categories, like “Birth issues in Perinatal care”, it is in (*) 3 different categories. The value of its Impact factor is unique for 2008, because it will be compared with different journals, its rank in these 3 different categories will vary. The (*) Journal ranking feature can help put these rankings in perspective.

Journal Rank in categories This table provides us with a quick view of the different rankings an Impact factor of 2.836 will give that Journal in the categories assigned to it. We can see here that the Journal is consistently (*) in the first quartile of the best Journals in these categories. (*) It is first out of 60 Journals in Nursing while thirteenth out of 61 in Obstetrics and ninth out of 86 in Pediatrics.

The Box plot A category box plot accompanies the rank-in-category table. The categories (*) are represented by letters. The spacing between the different parts of the box, the quartiles, helps indicate the degree of dispersion of impact of journals within the category. This representation allow the user to view the journal’s Impact Factor in the context of all Impact Factors for the journal’s categories. Envisioning a line at the position (*) of the journal’s Impact Factor helps one to better comprehend the display. We can see here for instance, that the impact factor in category A, Nursing, is right at the top of the high range, while in this category, (*) the majority of the impact factors are below 1.5 The purple box itself represents the 25th to the 75th percentile, or the mid 50 percent of the journals in the given category. The horizontal line within the box represents the median Impact Factor and the plus sign represents the mean Impact Factor. The horizontal lines above and below the box represent the whiskers, and these are the extremities within certain percentages. The circles (*) are the extreme or exceptional journals that fall outside of the whiskers.

Journal self citation To provide one the ability to easily compare self-citation rates among journals particularly as this influences Impact factor calculations. Journal self citations – Journal self citation is not inherently a bad practice. Authors of course cite related research and this may have been published in the journal to which one in turn submits a paper for publication. Journals with a very specialized subject focus may naturally display significant rates of self-citation. However, 80% of all journals listed in the JCR Science Edition have self-citation rates of less than 20%. Based on trends within a category we can get an idea of what may be excessive self-citation, which weakens the integrity of the journal’s Impact Factor. One of the new features in Journal Citation Reports is the ability to illuminate journal self-citation rates to provide one the ability to easily compare self-citation rates among journals, particularly as this influences the Impact Factor calculation. You can see here that for this particular journal there are detailed statistics of the overall citations and those which are self-citations, and also a re-calculation (*) of the Impact Factor with those self-citations removed.

Category Impact Data For more context regarding the impact factor for the Journal of Pediatrics you can also view the Median and Aggregate impact factor data for the category of Pediatrics. * From the full journal record, click on “View Category Data” to move to more information about the Subject Category Pediatrics.

Category Data – Median and Aggregate Impact Factors The Median Impact Factor for the subject category of Pediatrics is 1.252 The Aggregate Impact Factor for Pediatrics is 1.932 For Pediatrics, the median, or middle, Impact Factor for the entire category is 1.252 * The Aggregate Impact Factor for Pediatrics is 1.932 The Aggregate Impact Factor (*) is calculated by dividing all 2008 citation of items published in 2007 and 2006 in this category by the total number of articles and reviews published in 2006 and 2007 in this category In the case of Pediatrics there were 44688 citations to recent published items and 23136 articles/reviews published in 2006/2007 for an (*) aggregate Impact factor of 1.932

Access to JCR from the Web of Science If your institutions subscribes to both the Web of Science and JCR in the Web of Knowledge, then easy access to a journal’s impact factor is available from the full record view in the Web of Science Simply click on the link to Journal Citation Reports on the right hand dashboard (*). Remember, this will allow you to view information about the journal and not about any one article.

Impact Factor Trend Graph When you move to the JCR from the Web of Science, you will be taken directly to a five year impact factor trend graph for the journals. This graph shows the impact factor as calculated in each of the past five years. * You can move to a page with more information about this journal by clicking the return to journal button at the top of the page. Entry point into JCR from Web of Science Indicates the Journal’s Impact Factor over the latest five years

Using JCR Wisely You should not depend solely on citation data in your journal evaluations. Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review. Careful attention should be paid to the many conditions that can influence citation rates such as language, journal history and format, publication schedule, and subject specialty. The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR include primarily original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items, and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns. This should be taken into account in any comparative journal citation analysis. You should not depend solely on citation data in your journal evaluations. Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review. Careful attention should be paid to the many conditions that can influence citation rates such as language, journal history and format, publication schedule, and subject specialty. The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR include primarily original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items, and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns. This should be taken into account in any comparative journal citation analysis. For more information about how JCR is produced and factors affecting JCR data, please the Help File.

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