Get to Know… Journal Citation Reports (via Web of Knowledge)

WHAT IS IT?

Journal Citation Reports is a journal evaluation resource published by Thomson Reuters that is now available to Mercer University through the Web of Knowledge database portal. Journal Citation Reports makes available Impact Factors and other metrics allowing researchers to view the rank of more than 8000 science and technology journals in a variety of disciplines.To access Journal Citation Reports, go to the Swilley Library Web page  and click on Databases.  Click on W and select Web of Science from the list. Click on Additional Resources and select Journal Citation Reports. To find a journal, select Search for a specific journal and click on SUBMIT. From there you can type in the name of the journal and click on SEARCH. The complete Journal Citation Report for the named journal will be displayed. You can also search for journals by subject and compare titles within a field.

WHAT’S IT GOT?

Journal Citation Reports provides a variety of tools to weigh the importance of journals including Impact Factor, Immediacy Index, Eigenfactor score, and Article Influence score. The Impact Factor refers to the frequency in which the average article in a journal has been cited within a specific time period. The Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited. The Eigenfactor Score is another ranking method that assesses the total importance of a journal to the scientific community. Eigenfactor scores are scaled so that the sum of the Eigenfactor scores of all journals assessed in Journal Citation Reports is 100. The Article Influence score, which is also calculated by Eigenfactor, measures the average influence, per article of journal publications.

BOTTOM LINE

You can use this powerful tool to evaluate and rank thousands of journals with quantifiable statistical information gathered from citation data, however, Journal Citations Reports data should not be the sole criteria by which a publication is judged. Many factors can affect article citation including, country and language of publication, frequency of publication and subject specialization.

WANT MORE HELP?

Read more about Journal Citation Reports on the Web of Knowledge Analytical Resources page. Read more about the Eigenfactor algorithms at Eigenfactor.org.

You may also contact me for assistance with this resource and any other research inquiry.
Hannah Rogers -- Librarian Liaison to the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
678 547 6272
rogers_hk@mercer.edu