Journal & Author Impact Metrics | University of Texas Libraries
Social Sciences

Journal & Author Impact Metrics | University of Texas Libraries


 Source: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/subject/education/journalmetrics

Journal & Author Impact Metrics


Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

What it is: A measure of citations to a journal
based on 2 year period. A 2012 impact factor = A/B with A being the
number of times articles published in 2010 and 2011 were cited in 2012,
and B being the number of citable articles published in 2010 and 2011.
?Citable? articles include reviews and proceedings.  Self-cites are
included in the calculation.


Journal Impact Factors are based on citations from the journals
indexed in Web of Science.  For many social science fields, their titles
list is far from comprehensive, and this lack of coverage atifically
lowers impact numbers for many education journals.


Where to find it: Journal Citation Reports


  1. Start at the link above
  2. Go into the database and choose the "JCR Social Science Edition"
  3. Opt to "Search for a specific journal" and click "submit"
  4. Enter the name of your journal and click "search"
  5. You'll see results that include JIF and other data point.  To see a
    more complete explanation, click on the linked journal title.

SJR and SNIP

What they are: SJR (SciMago Journal Rank)
measures influence of a journal based on total citations and the
influence/prestige of the journals where they are cited. SNIP (Source
Normalized Impact per Paper) is contextual and measures citations based
on the total number of citations in a field. The impact of a single
citation can be higher in fields/subjects that are less-cited and
vice-versa.


Calculations are based on citations from journals tracked by Scopus
(a citation-tracking tool similar to Web of Science).  Like Web of
Science, there are gaps in its coverage of social science and education
journals and this artificially lowers the scores for many education
journals.


Where to find them: JournalM3trics



Eigenfactor (EF) and Article Influence (AI) Scores

What they are: Like JIF, the Eigenfactor is a
ratio of the number of citations to the number of articles. EF uses the
last 5 years of data. Citations from highly-cited journals have more
influence. Self-cites are removed. The mean Article Influence score is
1.0, so a score higher than 1 means articles from this journal have
above-average influence.


Metrics are calculated from the same journal title list as Journal
Citation Reports.  Many education and social science titles are not
covered, so EF and AI scores are not available for journals not in the
database.


Where to find them: 


Eigenfactor


Journal Citation Reports



Acceptance Rates

Acceptance rates aren't available for all journals, but these are
good place to look if you're publishing in education and psychology
journals.


American Psychological Association Journal Statistics


Cabell's Directories, Education Set



Altmetrics

What they are: Many new metrics are being
proposed and developed as alternatives to the more traditional metrics.
 Often these metrics are focused on articles rather than journals, but
some are designed to be applied to people, datasets, websites and other
points of information.   Altmetrics typically attempt to go beyond
citations to capture how often things are viewed, downloaded, linked,
discussed, etc.


Further Reading:


  • Altmetrics (PLOS, Public Library of Science)
  • The Altmetrics Collection (PLOS One)
  • Altmetrics from Wikipedia

Becker Medical Library Model

The Becker Medical Library Model for Assessment of Research Impact
is a qualitative tool designed to supplement publication analysis and
present a more holistic picture of how research impacts practioners,
policy, economies and communities.





h-index

What it is: The highest number of articles from a
journal or an author that have been cited at least that many times. An
h-index of 25 means that 25 articles have been cited a minimum of 25
times. An h5-index calculates only the last 5 complete years of
publication.


This is the most customizable metric for assessing the impact of
journals in the field of education, and an h-index can be calculated for
any journal (unlike JIF and SJR metrics which only track certain
titles).  In general, Google Scholar does a much better job of
tracking education journals than Web of Science (Journal Citation
Reports) and Scopus (SciMago).  It also includes citations from
conference papers, books, dissertations and more.  This explains why the
h-indexes calculated by Google Scholar are often much higher.



Where to find it: 


Google Metrics Displays h-indexes (based on citations in Google Scholar) for the top journals in each subdiscipline.  Start by following the "top 100 publications"
link.  Choose "Social Sciences" along the left and then the appropriate
sub-category.  If a journal isn't listed in these categories, there
isn't a way to access a journal h-index through Google Metrics.


To use Google Metrics for calculating your author h-index, set up a "Google Scholar Citations" account
and add all of your pubications to the account.  Google will keep a
running calculation of how often you are cited, where you are cited and a
current h-index.  Profiles can remain private or be made public.


Publish or Perish Software
that uses Google Scholar data to calculate h-index and g-indexes for
authors and/or journals.  It must be installed on your computer and
works best on a PC.   With this tool, you can easily remove duplicate
results, articles by authors with a similar name and limit results to
specific date ranges (for example, to calculate an h10-index).


SciMago A
quick way to find h-indexes or compare h-indexes across journal by
discipline or subject. This is a Scopus-driven tool, so some social
science journals aren't covered and citations from not-covered journals
aren't counted.  Also, watch the coverage dates.  If a journal hasn't
been tracked for long, the h-index will naturally be lower than from a
source that has tracked that journal back to volume 1.


Web of Science Calculates
h-indexes for both journals and authors.  This number is based on
citations from the journals tracked by this databases, which excluded
many education and social science journals, so numbers will appear lower
than they do in Google Scholar and Publish or Perish.  Simply do a
search for your journal (limited to the "Publication Name" field) or
your name (limited to the "Author" field).  Once results are returned,
follow the "Create Citation Report" link along the right side of the
screen.



g-index

What it is:  A measure similar to the h-index
that was disigned to consider very highly cited publications and reflect
significant contributions to their field.  Two authors may have similar
h-indexes, but one may have a higher g-index due to a very highly cited
paper or book.


Where to find it: Publish or Perish



Debating Impact Metrics: Further Reading

Causes for the Persistence of Impact Factor Mania


Document Categories in the ISI Web of Knowledge: Misunderstanding the Social Sciences?


DORA: San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment


Lost in Publication: How Measurement Harms Science


Maximizing the Impacts of Your Research: A Handbook for Social Scientists 


Research Assessment, Altmetrics and Tools for Determining Impact 


Stephen Curry Blog Post: Sick of Impact Factors


Steve Caplan?s Blog Post: In Defense of Journal Hierarchy 



Questions?

For additional information, contact Education Librarian, Janelle Hedstrom at [email protected]




Journal & Author Impact Metrics | University of Texas Libraries




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