Dears
Journal impact factors are found in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). JCR is a unique database which is used to determine the relative importance of journals within their subject categories.
An impact factor is one measure of the quality of a journal. This is calculated by the number of citations received by the journal within the Web of Science database. That means, 'A journal impact factor is the average number of times that articles published in a specific journal in the two previous years were cited in a particular year.
Thomson Reuters, now it is changed to ''Clarivate analytics'', is the organization that releases result calculated impact factor. So Thomosn Reuters is the company and IF is the product. Thomson Reuters also has a databases called "Web of Science" and it calculates IF for all indexed journals in that database"
SCOPUS is another database, owned by Elsevier company and it calculates CiteScore for all journals indexed in it.
Yes, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is the official document to find journal Impact Factors (IF). IF is a journal level metric which reflects the average number of citations received by the considered journals in the previous two years (to the year considered its IF) w.r.t the total citable articles published in these two years. It is more suitable to compare journals in a same subject domain.
IF has different interpretations. Some people consider it as a measure of quality while some other part introduce it as a measure of popularity. IF is a measure of visibility according to another part. Quality is a subjective notion. It is very difficult to interpret 'quality' as a single numerical value, in my opinion. Thus, I would say IF is not completely a reflection of journal quality.
Clarivate Analytics is the official owner/publisher of IF and Web of Science (WoS). Not all journals indexed in WoS include IF values. Journals indexed in SCI, SCIE, and SSCI include IF values. However, very fresh journals and journals with very low IF may not appear in JCR.
Yes, Scopus has a measure called CiteScore that follows similar calculation to the IF. Elsevier is the owner of the Scopus database.
Yes, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is the official document to find journal Impact Factors (IF). IF is a journal level metric which reflects the average number of citations received by the considered journals in the previous two years (to the year considered its IF) w.r.t the total citable articles published in these two years. It is more suitable to compare journals in a same subject domain.
IF has different interpretations. Some people consider it as a measure of quality while some other part introduce it as a measure of popularity. IF is a measure of visibility according to another part. Quality is a subjective notion. It is very difficult to interpret 'quality' as a single numerical value, in my opinion. Thus, I would say IF is not completely a reflection of journal quality.
Clarivate Analytics is the official owner/publisher of IF and Web of Science (WoS). Not all journals indexed in WoS include IF values. Journals indexed in SCI, SCIE, and SSCI include IF values. However, very fresh journals and journals with very low IF may not appear in JCR.
Yes, Scopus has a measure called CiteScore that follows similar calculation to the IF. Elsevier is the owner of the Scopus database.
Good morning
Yes, I think you are write
Ingrid García
A number of publishers and other organizations have developed their own proprietary formula to judge the relative importance of a journal within its field. These factors are often listed on a journal’s website in an effort to advertise their prestige and/or entice authors.
The most widely accepted and reputable impact factor in international circles, particularly for academic purposes (e.g. interviews, awarding tenure, career distinction), is undoubtedly the Thomson-Reuters JCR Impact Factor. Often times, this is referred to simply as “JCR Impact Factor” or “Journal Impact Factor”.
You can check the JCR Impact Factor for a journal on the Clarivate Analytics website via https://jcr.clarivate.com/. Please note, you will need a login – often available from your institution’s library. Thomson-Reuters is a subsidiary of Clarivate. Clarivate acquired Thomson-Reuters in 2016.
Hope this helps! Best wishes for a smooth and successful publication journey.
Best regards,
Hamed Bazaz | Founder, Managing Director | www.journaledit.com
I would like to thank you all for your prompt and interactive replies. My aim is to open this discussion for your wider circulation due to most of the scholars have been confusing about the scientific database organizations and released values which has been calculated from those databases. Such as clarivate analytics , formerly know as, Thomson Reuters are an organization and Impact Factor (IF) is the calculated value released by this organization.
Regards
Tadele Assefa
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