Impact Factor (IF) is the oldest and most used indicator for measuring the impact of journals. Clarivate Analytics has the exclusive right to the impact factor and the IF numbers are only available in Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database and are updated annually.
The Journal Impact Factor for 2017 is calculated as follows:
First, citations in 2017 to items published in the journal in 2015 and 2016 are added up. The sum is divided by the total number of citable items published in the journal in 2015 and 2016. The result is the Journal Impact Factor.
1. Access Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -database.
2. Write the name of the journal into the search box.
3. Now you can see the information of the journal of your interest and the IF numbers from the last couple of years.
4. If you want to know the journal's position in its subject category, browse the page until you see the link "Click here to view Rank, Cited Journal Data, Citing Journal Data, Box Plot, and Journal Relationships". Now you can select "Rank" on the left.
1. Access Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -database.
2. Select "Browse by Category".
3. On the left side menu you will find "Select Category". From there select the journal category you want to explore. Remember that it is advisable to compare only journals from the same journal category.
4. Scroll down and select "Submit".
5. If you see only the name of the journal rank, go to the top of the page and select "Journals by RANK".
Publication Forum is a rating and classification system to support the quality assessment of research output. The evaluation is performed by discipline-specific Expert Panels. Publication Forum is part of the university funding model established by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Publication Forum levels:
1 = basic level
2 = leading level
3 = highest level
1. Go to Publication Forum (link above).
2. Write the name of the journal and select Search.
3. Search results appear.
1. Go to Publication forum (link above).
2. Select whether you want search by panels or by categorys (for example MinEdu, Web of Science or Scopus fields).
3. Click Search.
4. You can also download results as an Excel file.
Scopus has several tools to evaluate journals:
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) measures journal’s prestige by taking into account the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal. It accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the prestige of the journals where the citations come from (based on the SJR score). For example, if both journals A and B receive the same number of citations, the SJR indicator of Journal A is higher, if its citations come from more prestigious journals than journal B’s.
SJR is calculated based on the Elsevier Scopus citations data over a three year period. The journal self-citations discount the indicator value. SJR is available in Scopus or free of charge through the SCImago Journal & Country Rank service.
Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) measures a source’s contextual citation impact. It takes into account the characteristics of the source’s subject field. SNIP is calculated based on the citation data of the Elsevier’s Scopus database over a period of 3 years. SNIP is available in Scopus or free of charge through the CWTS Journal Indicators website
1. Go to Scopus
2. Select Sources from top of the page.
3. If you want to search a specific journal, select Title from the drop down menu and write the name of the journal to the search box.
4. On the result page you can see CiteScore, SJR and SNIP values for the journal.
1. Access the Scopus database.
2. Select Sources from top of the page.
3. If you want to compare journals in a certain journal category click the search box and select from the menu which category you are interested in.
4. Scroll down the page to select Apply.
5. From result page you can select, how to sort the results, for example by CiteScore or SJR.
As open access publishing has increased, so have attempts at fraud. The so-called predatory open-access journals collect overtly large author fees or their peer-review does not fulfill the set requirements. Notification about the publication fee can also arrive only after the article is ready for publishing.
To analyze the reliability of the publisher, you can use the following check-list:
• does the publisher disclose full contact information, including an address?
• is information available on who owns the publisher and in which country the publisher operates?
• who are the members of the journal's editorial board and do they provide full information on their institutional affiliation?
• is there information on the author fees?
• are the previous articles written by well-known scholars and institutions and are they of a high-quality in your opinion?
• what does the peer-review process entail and is there information on it?
• is the publication listed in the DOAJ directory ?
• is the publisher a member of OASPA?
• are the terms of the publishing agreement and copyright reasonable?
The increase of open access publishing has attracted suspicious publishers to join. These fraudulent players are called predatory journals, predatory publications and predatory publishers. They exploit the open access publishing business model that requires authors to pay a fee to make their article freely available.
Predatory journals do collect author fees but they do not fulfil the requirements for proper scientific publishing, for example the peer review process. In practice, predatory journals publish without any quality control everything they are paid. The only purpose of these journals is to make money. Please note though that collecting author fees alone does not make a journal predatory – also legitimate journals collect author fees.
Some characteristics of predatory journals
More information:
Think. Check. Submit. -checklist
Anna-Sofia Ruth: How to avoid predatory publications?
