1. Journal Evaluation and Citation Research Tools
A Library Workshop for SSC Dept
Sept 2013

2. Contents Citation Analysis & Ranking Tools at Journal Level
Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
Journal Impact Factor and Ranking by Subjects
SCImago Journal Ranking (based on Scopus citation data)
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Ranking by Subjects
H-Index
Other Journal Ranking and Measuring Tools
Citation Analysis at Researcher or Article Level
Web of Science (SSCI)
Scopus
Google Scholar

3. Citation Analysis & Ranking Tools
at Journal Level

4. What is Journal Impact Factor?
Journal Impact Factor is a simple statistics intended to reflect the “impact” of a journal. Basically it indicates the average number of times an article published in the particular journal during the past two years was being cited.
Journal Impact Factor is based on the Journal Citation Reports which is updated on annual basis.

5. Journal Citation Reports
"Journal Citation Reports® offers a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the world's leading journals, with quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data. By compiling articles' cited references, JCR Web helps to measure research influence and impact at the journal and category levels, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals. Available in “Science” and “Social Sciences” editions. "
JCR is part of based on citation data from the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index. In the past, SCI, SSCI and JCR were the only tools providing verifiable measurement tools of journal impact based on citation statistics. Therefore they have been and still are the most widely recognized journal ranking / measuring tools.

6. It is one of the Products in Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge
What are the relationship among these terms?
Web of Knowledge (WOK)
Web of Science (WOS)
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI)
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)
Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

7. Web of Knowledge Databases
Web of Science
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Current Contents Connect
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)
Journal
Citation Report
(JCR)
Biological Abstracts
Science Citation Index Expanded
BIOSIS Previews
Conference Proceedings Citation Index
Other Databases
Other Databases
(e.g. Book Citation Index)

8. Accessing Journal Citation Reports at HKIEd
Available under E-Resources or Research Support at Library Web Site

11. Finding a Journal in JCR
HKIEd has JCR
Social Sciences Edition (1998 – 2012) &
Science Edition (2008 – 2012)
Browse by Subject / Publisher / Country; or
Search by Title or ISSN; or
View all Journals

14. Journal Information Provided by JCR
Total Cites
Impact Factor
5-Year Impact Factor
Immediacy Index
Cited Half-Life
Citing Half-Life
Eigenfactor Score
Article Influence
In this workshop, we shall focus on the meaning of Impact Factor, which has been the most widely used JCR indicator for journal ranking.

15. Below is only a simplified explanation of the metrics
Below is only a simplified explanation of the metrics. For definitions and details, click the help in the JCR journal report pages
Total Cites
Total number of citations for this journal in the JCR year
Impact Factor
On average, how many times an article in this journal is being cited – based on articles published in the two previous years
5-Year Impact Factor
On average, how many times an article in this journal is being cited – based on articles published in the five previous years
Immediacy Index
On average, how many times an article in this journal is being cited in the same year – based on last year's data (reflects more about the nature of the subject than journal quality)
Cited Half-Life
Indicates how far back the older articles in this journal are still being cited (reflects more about the nature of the subject than journal quality)

16. Below is only a simplified explanation of the metrics
Below is only a simplified explanation of the metrics. For definitions and details, click the help in the JCR journal report pages
Citing Half-Life
Indicates how recent or how old the bibliography referred by articles in this journal are (reflects more about the nature of the subject than journal quality)
Eigenfactor Score
The Eigenfactor Score is some kinds of enhanced 5-year impact factor – by giving higher score for getting cited in more influential journals and eliminates self-citation
Article Influence Score
The Article Influence Score is derived from the Eigenfactor Score based on matching the share of the journal's influence against the share of the journal's share of articles. The neutral influence score is 1.00 – thus a journal with article influence score greater than 1.00 indicates that each article in the journal has above-average influence and vice versa

17. Impact Factor Calculation

18. No. of items published in 2010 or 2011
Working Example: Impact Factor of Journal of Experimental Education (JCR SSC 2012) = 0.822
Impact Factor =
No. of Cites to 2010 or 2011 items in 2012
No. of items published in 2010 or 2011

19. Impact Factor Trend of a Journal

20. Impact Factor Trend of a Journal

21. So, is an Impact Factor of 0.822 Good or Bad?
Well, it largely depends on the subject category and which journals it is compared with
Q. If John is scoring 2 goals per football match, is he a good shooter?
A. May be. But is he scoring against professional goal keepers or is he playing at your backyard?

22. Journal Ranking by Impact Factor by JCR Subject Category

23. Journal Ranking by Impact Factor by JCR Subject Category
By default, journals are ranked by its current impact factor by subject
NOTE:
A journal can belong to more than one subject category; and therefore it is possible for a journal to have two different ranks

24. Journal Ranking by Impact Factor by JCR Subject Category
Click "View Journal Summary List" for a list of all journals in this category

25. Journal Summary List

26. Journal Ranking by Impact Factor by JCR Subject Category
Click "View Category Data " for the average values of impact factor and other indicators for all journals combined in this subject category

27. Category Summary Data

28. To Browse and Sort by Subject Categories

29. To Save the Journal Data of a List of Journals
Mark All

30. To Save the Journal Data of a List of Journals
Click Marked List

31. To Save the Journal Data of a List of Journals
or display the whole list in one page
for print or paste to Excel
You can Save to a Text File
which can be imported to Excel

32. Hands-on Practice
What is the Journal Impact Factor for the journal addictive behaviors?
What subject categories does the journal addictive behaviors belong to? What are the Impact Factor of these subject categories? What are the respective subject rankings of addictive behaviors in the respective subject categories?
What is the full name of the highest ranked journal under the subject category "women's studies" in JCR 2012 Social Sciences Edition? What is its Impact Factor?

33. Additional Information
Using Citation Reports Wisely
JCR Help Pages
JCR Subject Category Scope Notes

34. OK, but what if …
What if the journal is not covered in JCR or I like to find more evidence? Are there any other generally accepted alternatives?

35. Scopus as an Alternative Citation Index
For a journal, just being indexed in SCI, SSCI & A&HCI have traditionally been considered as a proof of quality. However, JCR and journal impact factor has also been criticized to be US and Western European focused / biased
And we should also note that if an article has zero cites in Web of Science, it only means that it was not cited by journals in Web of Science. It doesn’t mean that it is not being cited at all.
In 2004 Elsevier launched Scopus which is the first ever legitimate competition with Web of Science – with more contents and broader geographic distribution:
In September 2013, Scopus has about 20,000 peer-reviewed journals in physical sciences, health sciences, social sciences and life sciences
Of these journals, close to 9,000 come from Western European countries, compared to about 6,000 from North America and about 4,000 from the rest of the World (including over 1,600 from Asian countries) – over 1/4 from non-US-non-W.European.

36. Scopus as an Alternative Citation Index
In 2007, Scopus citation data replaced Web of Science as the citation data source in the Top 200 University Rankings in the Times Higher Education Supplement conducted by QS. Coincidentally, the ranking for HKU moved up from 33 to 18, CUHK 50 to 38, HKUST 58 to 53, City U 154 to 149 in 2007.
In 2010, the Top University Ranking by Times Higher Education Supplement switched back to Web of Science after THE ended the cooperation with QS and collaborated with Thomson Reuters.
But QS launched its own QS World University Ranking independently and continued to use Scopus as the citation data source.

37. Scopus as an Alternative Citation Index
The Australian Research Council also uses Scopus citation data for ERA 2010 and ERA 2012

38. Journal Analytics in Scopus

39. First search by journal name or ISSN; then double click the needed journal at the results list

40. Various Citation Data will be Provided in Charts & Table Format

41. Various Citation Data will be Provided in Charts & Table Format

42. You may also Compare it With Other Journals

43. SCImago – Pre-processed Scopus Journal Analysis Results for Easy Retrieval
SCImago is a research group dedicated to information analysis, representation and retrieval by means of visualisation techniques in Spain.
Based on citation data from Scopus, it provides free ranking information of journals a portal called SCImago Journal & Country Rank:

44. SCImago Journal Ranking
SCImago is based on Scopus, the total number of journals in 2012 is 20,544
By default, journal ranking is based on SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) although it also includes other indicators including H-Index and “Cites / Doc (2 years)” (which is based on the same formula for impact factor calculation)
Users can search by journal name and ISSN individually; or search and rank a group of journals by broad subject areas, specific subject category and country.

45. SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
SJR is intended as a measure of the journal’s impact, influence and prestige. It expresses the average number of weighted citations received in the selected year by the documents published in the journal in the three previous years.
It is an enhanced version of impact factor by giving more weights to citations by journals with higher reputation. Technically it was calculated using an iterative process by reputation transfer. For the formula and technical details:

46. SCImago: Journal Search

47. Sample SCImago Journal Results
SCImago subjects and Quartile ranking according to SJR
H-Index
SJR, Cites per Doc, Total Cites

48. Switch between Chart and Data display

49. Switch between Chart and Data display

50. View the Subject Category Full List
Click on the subject to display the full list of journals in this subject ranked by SJR

51. ~20,000 journal titles are grouped into over 300 subject categories
~20,000 journal titles are grouped into over 300 subject categories. User can change the sorting order, reference year, etc and download option is also available

52. Click Journal Ranking for Subject Category List

53. H-Index Developed in 2005 by Jorge Hirsch
The H-index expresses the journal's number of articles (h) that have received at least h citations – a journal has index h if h of its papers have at least been cited h times and the rest of its papers have each been cited less than or equal to h times.
E.g. A journal with H-Index = 21 means that during the accounting period, the top 21 most cited articles from this journal has each been cited at least 21 times; the rest of the articles from this journal has each been cited no more than 21 times
For further details

54. H-Index
It is designed to avoid the average number of cites being distorted by "one-hit wonders" (one single popular article inflates the average number of hits for the entire journal).
It quantifies both journal scientific productivity and scientific impact and it is also applicable to scientists, countries, etc. The higher the h-index, the more it should be recognized as a force.
Therefore, it looks at not just the quality (highly cited article) but also the quantity (many articles with significant number of citations) of a journal
Now it is not only available in Scopus but also available in other tools including Web of Science citation indexes

55. An example of how H-Index is used to compare the research strength by countries
H-Index for Hong Kong = 292: meaning that there are 292 articles each being cited at least 292 times

56. Hands-on Practice
What is the 2012 SJR and H-Index for the journal addictive behaviors?
What subject categories does the journal addictive behaviors belong to? What are the respective subject rankings of addictive behaviors in the respective subject categories based on 2012 SJR?
What is the full name of the highest ranked journal under the subject category "gender studies" in SCImago based on 2012 SJR? What is its SJR?

57. More Journal Ranking Lists & Measurement Tools
See Library web page
HKIEd Institute Journal Ranking List
Australian Research Council ERA 2010 / 2012 Ranked Journal List
European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH)
學術引用文獻資料庫 Academic Citation Index for journals in Taiwan
Chinese Core Journal Lists and Chinese Subject Ranking Lists for journals in Mainland China

58. Citation Analysis
at Researcher Level or Article Level

59. Citation Analysis at Researcher / Article Level
How to find out how many times your article has been cited?
How to set up an alert when someone cites your article?
How to calculate my own H-Index?

60. Finding Citation Counts for an Individual Article in Web of Science
E.g. Search this article: Chen, S X., et al. (2006). The effects of self-efficacy and relationship harmony on depression across cultures. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 37(6), 643.

62. Times Cited in Web of Knowledge
Click the number "18" to see which 18 articles from Web of Science has cited this work

64. Create Citation Alert for Articles Indexed in Web of Science
If your article is published in one of the Web of Science indexed journals, you can Create a Citation Alert so that you can be notified when your work is being cited in Web of Science

65. Click "Sign in" to sign in or register for a free account
Create Citation Alert (Must sign up first)

66. Sign in or register for a free account

67. Change the Citation Setting if necessary

69. Finding Citation Counts and Create Alerts for Works Not Indexed in Web of Science
If your article is not indexed in Web of Science or may be it is a book, you can still check how many times it has been cited by Web of Science journals and create an alert using the "cited reference search" function

70. Cited Reference Search
E.g. I want to know how many times the following book has been cited:
Bond, M. H. (1991). Beyond the Chinese face: Insights from psychology. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.

71. Click the "Cited Reference Search"
Use only Surname and initial(s); Chinese authors should consider using different variant forms (e.g. Cheung ABL or Cheung BL or Leung CB*)
Use abbreviated journal titles only. For books, suggest to leave this blank first

72. Select the relevant entries from the result list and then click "Finish Search"

73. Number of times cited in Web of Science = 283
Click "Create Citation Report" for quick summary of the 283 citing articles

75. Modify the Cited Reference Search for Future Email Alerts
Based on what has been entered for the 283 citations, enter the "cited work" field with what Thomson Reuters uses (Use "*" and "or" as necessary)

76. Click "Select All" and "Finish Search"

77. Delete unwanted search history
Use the "Save History / Create Alert" function to set up alerts

78. Enter History Name and select desired options
Enter History Name and select desired options. Make sure you have checked the Alerts option

79. Hands-on Practice
Try Cited Reference Search or set up a Citation Alert on anything that interest you – a piece of your work, a key paper related to your research topic, etc.

80. Set a Citation Alert in Scopus
At the article details screen in Scopus, you may set a RSS / alert

81. Login is required for email alerts (Use your ScienceDirect login or sign up for a free registration)

82. Finding the H-Index for a Researcher based on Scopus data
Start by Clicking "Author Search" and then search by name and affiliation

83. Select the author you have in mind; sometimes the author may appear in more than one entry

84. After selecting all appropriate entries, click "show documents"
Sometimes it is easier to browse by affiliated institution or City / Country
After selecting all appropriate entries, click "show documents"

85. Double check and select only the articles actually written by this author. Then click "View citation overview"

86. This is the H-Index for this author
This is the H-Index for this author. 31 means that among his 131 works covered in Scopus, 31 of them have been cited for at least 31 times

87. Illustration of H-Index Calculation: note the 32nd most cited article has 28 citations. If one more citation is added to this article in the future, the H-Index of this author will become 31

88. You may change the date range as well as the sorting order to display the most cited first

89. Export Option Available
You may save the list for future use (signup & login required)

90. Hands-on Practice
Try to set up a Citation Alert on anything that interest you – a piece of your work, a key paper related to your research topic, etc.

91. Google Scholar Citations

92. Google Scholar and Publish and Perish
Google Scholar is a specialized search engine by Google for academic contents . It includes not only papers / articles but also contents of Google Books
Advanced search features like searching by author, publication title, subjects and years are provided
Citation data and related functions (e.g. links to citing articles, related articles, citation alerts) are provided; and you can even build your own profile – “My Citations”

93. This one actually was published in 1945
The search results from Google Scholar for Journal of Experimental Education will show many articles with no date information
This one actually was published in 1945

94. Publish or Perish
We shall come back to Author impact / General citation search functions of Publish or Perish later in the next part of this workshop

95. Finding your Citation Counts in Google Scholar
Search for your article in Google Scholar and note the "Cited by xx"

96. Citation Email Alert on Google Scholar
Click "Cited by 26" to show who have cited your work
At this screen (showing who have cited your work), click the "Create alert" function

97. Enter your address; and then follow the instructions sent to your to confirm your alert request

98. My Citations in Google Scholar

99. My Citations in Google Scholar

100. My Citations in Google Scholar
Allows you to set up your own profile – you will need to search and identify only those articles written by you; you can get citation alerts; allow the public to see your profile and citation metrics, etc.
For details:
Also read:
Why every scientist should make his Google Scholar profile public ( from the Survival Blog for Scientists (

101. About Using Google Scholar Citation Data as Evidence of Quality
Caution: as indicated before, Google Scholar will usually provides more citation counts than Web of Science and Scopus because these dedicated citation tools only provide citations from the journals they index but Google Scholar has a broader coverage including grey literature.
However, Google does not have a publication list allowing people to understand or verify the data being used. You can read the inclusion guidelines for Google Scholar ( and see that it may not be that difficult for any academics to upload an unpublished paper and get indexed in Google Scholar
At present, Google Scholar is just not widely accepted as a reliable tool – at least not at the administrative level of academic institutions. So it is a great tool for tracking who is using your work or get alerted on someone with a close research interest. But it is not quite there yet as an accepted citation tool

102. Publish or Perish http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm
Publish or Perish is a free software which analyzes academic citations based on the citation data from Google Scholar like the H-Index, average citation by article / author / year, etc.
The software must first be downloaded from the web site and installed in order to run

104. Thank you For assistance & further information Francis Chan
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