Measuring research value: Journal Impact Factors
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What is this measure?
The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. The impact factor of a journal in a particular year is the number of citations received in the current year to articles published in the two preceding years divided by the number of articles published in the same two years.
It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.
Due to differences in publishing patterns by discipline, impact factors cannot be compared between disciplines.
Finding a journal impact factor
Find the Library's ink to Journal Citation Reports (JCR is available with editions for Science, and Social Science disciplines).
5. For additional analysis and explanation of impact factor and other measures, click the journal's title. Each journal title is assigned to one or more “Subject Categories.” These categories can be found under the Journal Information heading (immediately below the ranking chart).
To find impact factors for journals in a discipline
To view the Impact Factor for a group of journals by Subject Category:
- Begin a new search by clicking the Welcome button in the upper left of the main JCR screen.
- Select View a group of journals by Subject Category , then click Submit.
- The Subject Category Selection page will let you search by one or more subject categories. Select a subject category (e.g. Physiology), check View Journal Data , select sort by: Impact Factor , then click Submit .
The results page will show the impact factor of the journals in your selected category or categories. For additional analysis and explanation of impact factor and other measures, click the journal's title (e.g. ACTA PHYSIOL).
