Transcript JCR Early 2009 Enhancements

JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS® – “THE JCR”
FEBRUARY 2009 ENHANCEMENTS
GSS – Thomson Reuters, Scientific Business, A&G
January 2009
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
For decades, the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) has
served as a foundation of journal collection
development, characterization, and evaluation within
academic and government libraries worldwide.
In early 2009 an unprecedented enhancement and
release of the JCR is scheduled, incorporating new
metrics and information to complement the high-profile
Impact Factor.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Why add additional metrics to the JCR?
Our objective in including this new
information is to expand one’s evaluative
perspective on scholarly journals, to provide
a more thorough and well-rounded overview
of their overall impact and influence.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
New Metrics & Information
• Five-Year Impact Factor
•Rank-in-Category Tables
•Box Plots
•Illumination of Journal Self-Citations
•Eigenfactor MetricsTM:
EigenfactorTM and Article InfluenceTM
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Citation Behavior, variance among disciplines:
Some fields are very fast moving, particularly within the life sciences, and published
research gets cited at a relatively rapid pace. Research in other fields, mathematics
for example, makes its impact more slowly over an extended period of time.
Differences in citation curves at the category level
12%
Cell Biol (5.9)
% of total citations to the category
Med, Gen Int (7.1)
10%
Math (>10)
Multidisc (7.6)
Econ (>10)
8%
Education(8.3)
6%
4%
2%
2006 Impact Factor
Years
0%
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
Cited year
2000
1999
1998
1997
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Introduction of a 5-Year Impact Factor:
To better gauge the impact of journals within fields where influence of published
research evolves over a longer period of time than presented by the traditional
2-Year Impact Factor.
Immunology
 Impact Factor is based
on two years of cited journal
content – cites in the
current year to journal
material published in the
prior two years.
 A 5-Year Impact Factor
is based on cites in the
current year to journal
material published in the
prior five years.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Introduction of a 5-Year Impact Factor:
To better gauge the impact of journals within fields where influence of published
research evolves over a longer period of time than presented by the traditional
2-Year Impact Factor.
Geology
Geology
 Impact Factor is based
on two years of cited journal
content – cites in the
current year to journal
material published in the
prior two years.
 A 5-Year Impact Factor
is based on cites in the
current year to journal
material published in the
prior five years.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Rank in Category table:
Many journals maintain an editorial scope that necessitates their inclusion in
more than one JCR category. To better reveal the influence of a journal in all
assigned categories a Rank in Category table will display each category in which
the journal appears along with rank in the category and the Quartile in which the
journal is placed in that category - based on Impact Factor.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Category Box Plot:
A category Box Plot accompanies the Rank in Category table. The spacing between the
different parts of the box, the quartiles, helps indicate the degree of dispersion of impact of
journals within the category. View the journal's Impact Factor in the context of all Impact
Factors for the journal's category as depicted by the graph – envisioning a line at the
position of the journal’s Impact Factor helps one to better comprehend the display.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Journal Self-Citation

Journal Self-Citation itself is not an inherently “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.

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.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Illumination of Journal Self-citation Rates:
To provide one the ability to easily compare self-citation rates among journals
particularly as this influences Impact factor calculations.
Category: Materials Science, Composites
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Eigenfactor MetricsTM: EigenfactorTM and Article InfluenceTM:
To compliment Impact Factor and other JCR metrics by providing a broader
perspective on Journal Influence through specific measures now widely accepted
by the scholarly community.
These metrics are developed through The Eigenfactor Project™ -- a noncommercial academic research project sponsored by the Bergstrom lab in the
Department of Biology at the University of Washington. – www.eigenfactor.org
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
EigenfactorTM Score:
• Scholarly references join journals together in a vast network of
citations. The Eigenfactor Score algorithm uses the structure of
the entire network to evaluate the importance of each journal,
cutting across all disciplines. Self-citations are excluded.
• This corresponds to a simple model of research in which readers
follow chains of citations as they move from journal to journal.
• Eigenfactor calculations take into consideration a 5-year span of
citation activity utilizing data from the Journal Citation Reports.
• Journals are considered to be influential if they are cited often
by other influential journals.
Journal Citation Reports ® – Forthcoming Enhancements
Article InfluenceTM Score:
• As with Eigenfactor Score, Article Influence Score:
– Uses the structure of the entire citation network to evaluate the importance of
each journal, based on JCR data.
– Does not consider self-citations
• The calculation of Article Influence Score does in fact incorporate
Eigenfactor Score.
• However, as Eigenfactor Score can be described as presenting the total
collective value provided by all of the articles published in a journal in a year
– Article Influence Score measures the average influence of individual
articles appearing in the same journal, translating to the importance of
an article published in that journal.
• Because it does present an average for article-level influence, Article
Influence is more like the Impact Factor than Eigenfactor Score – though
keep in mind the methodology is quite different and therefore provides a
perspective different from but complimentary to Impact Factor.
JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS® – “THE JCR”
FEBRUARY 2009 ENHANCEMENTS
GSS – Thomson Reuters, Scientific Business, A&G
January 2009