Journal metrics are used to evaluate and compare the quality of journals and help identify suitable journals to publish in or use for grant and promotion applications.
Overall, journal metrics are an annual figure based on the amount of article citations within the journal from the previous 2-5 years. However, there are varied ways in which these are calculated depending on the indexing platform and comparison across disciplines can be restrictive. Also, for new journals a metric will not be established for the first couple of years.
The main indexing platforms that provide this information are Scopus, Web of Science,Scimago and within these are differing metric indices.
Avondale University has the below options available for the unique metrics and searchable platforms.
Is the average number of weighted citations received in the given year, by the documents published in the journal in the three previous years. Source: Scimago. SJR can be used to make comparisons across discipines.
Find a more detailed look at the SJR in the Journal of Informetrics
Citescore counts the citations received in a four your period to articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters and data papers published in the given four year period, and divides this by the number of publication s published in the given four year period.
Journals number of articles (h) that have received at least (h) number of citations over the whole period. Source: Scimago
h5-index is a calcuation used in Google Metrics based on those articles published in the last five calendar years.
Source-normalised Impact per Paper: is the number of citations in given year by papers published in the previous three years, divided by total number of papers n the past three years. It measures the citation potential and is field normalised. SNIP uses Scopus database as the source of indexed journals.
Quartiles are an indication of where the journal is placed and groups it within one of four quartile catagories:
Q1 - top quartile, Q2 - second quartile, Q3 third quartile, Q4 - fourth quartile
Journal Impact Factor is calculation of the number of citations of a one year period by items publihsed in the last two years.
Note: it can be used as a blanket term for Journal metrics types.
Journal Citation Reports are a subscribed annual report that is based on the indexing of Web of Science (Clarivate) - currently Avondale does not have a subscription to such a report.
Scimago is a journal searching platform that will provide the journal ranking and country ranking. It will list the SJR, Quartile and H index of journals and sources its rankings via indexing done by Scopus.
This is a great platform to use
Scopus is an indexing platform that offers free journal rankings and metrics. It will measure using Citescore, SNIP, SJR.
Avondale does not subscribe to Scopus but there is certain data available for free.
This is a recommended platform to use in obtaining journal rankings.
Another way to find the journal ranking is by going directly to the journals platform from which it is hosted. This will provide the relevant metric depending on how the publisher is indexed. The journal will use the metric as a promotional tool and although it may be time consuming the access to this information will be freely available.
Google Scholar - provides ranked journal listings from a large range of fields. The metric used is H5-index
Awareness that this metric can include self citations and skew the numbers.
Web of Science (clarivate) is an indexing platform that you can freely search individual journals and their rankings (you will need to sign in on a personal account). Web of Science also produces a Journal Citation Report of the Journal Impact Factor. Avondale does not subscribe to Web of Science or JCRs.
Indexes scholarly resources, links to open access and some library subscriptions.
Ovid
Search multiple Ovid databases, including Books@Ovid, Embase, Emcare, Joanna Briggs Institute, MEDLINE, PyscINFO, FIAF International Film Archive, etc.
Creating an alert for a specified journal article
NB: You can also create a citation alert for a specified author. Search for your author and follow the above instructions from step 2.
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