We see old impact factor mentioned on some journals. That's why we don't know what is the most recent impact factor of that journal.
Yes, the impact factor of journals are updated annually, while the IF of some increases, others might retain theirs or even experience a fall in the IF.
Journals need to get updated impact factor annually depending upon improvement of quality, reputation and standard of the journals.
Dear Mohammad Yasin ,
Yes, journals indexed in SCIE/SSCI index from Clarivate (you can check the index here https://mjl.clarivate.com/home) are updated annually. For this Clarivate published every year somewhere in June the latest list in their JCR Report.
Reasons for your observation can be:
-Some publishers take (too much) time before all their impact factors are updated
-Some publishers misleadingly mention an old impact factor while they are no longer indexed in SCIE/SSCI index
-Some (predatory) publishers mention a fake impact factor (called misleading metrics: https://beallslist.net/misleading-metrics/)
Clarivate does not publish everything for free but thanks to RG members the JCR Report can be found (see enclosed file).
Best regards.
Dear Mohammad,
thank you for posting this important technical question which is certainly of broad general interest to many RG members. Rob Keller already provided a rather comprehensive answer. I would like to add that impact factors of scientific journals can fluctuate over the years, i.e. increases but also decreases are possible. In my personal experience, the impact factors of most established chemical journals continuously increased over the years. Personally I find that impact factors can give you a helpful orientation. Although the IFs are much and often criticized, I keep wondering what other measures should be used to judge the quality of a journal. In any case, we always oriented ourself on the basis of impact factors of renowned journals to decide where to publish. In my opinion it pays off to aim for the highest possible impact factor but at the same time remain realistic.
Good luck with your work and best wishes, Frank Edelmann
It is better to check the impact factor from the annual list of impact factors of the journals published by "Journal Citation Reports (JCR)" instead of relying on the journal's website.
Furthermore some journals mention impact factor on their website but are not listed in JCR list therefore it is better to rely on JCR annual report.
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