Journal Ranking and Evaluation

WoS: Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

WoS: Journal Citation Reports (JCR)  is a subscription database from the Clarivate group of databases for current research and judgments in diverse fields. Refers to articles from peer-reviewed journals in addition to other types of publications. Provides citation count indicators at the article level (Journal Citation Indicator), and indicators at the evaluation level of journals whose articles appear in the database (Journal Impact factor). In addition, it allows for receiving numerical and visual data of the quotes.

Evaluation of journals developed in the Web of Science Core Collection group Includes rank, quartile (Q), and JIF percentile information based on the JIF score for a particular year for each subject category.

• Search by journal name, ISSN number, and research areas:
  Search results will contain visual statistical evaluation indicators. The results can be ranked according to the Impact Factor index, and the journal can be ranked among other journals in the field of research.
• Types of indicators in the JCR database:
  • Impact factor: A quantitative indicator that represents the average number of citations of publications in a certain period. The index allows comparisons between different journals in the same category/discipline. A higher index value represents a more important journal that has influenced the community of researchers in this field of knowledge because the articles published in it have received great resonance (many citations in other articles). Please note! Since the IF index is affected by several factors, such as years of publication, field of research, types of articles, changes in the journal format and title, and language of the journal, the IF cannot be used as the only tool for determining the quality of journals.
  • Eigenfactor: A weighted average calculation that gives higher weight to citations originating from more important journals.
  • Journal Citation Indicator: The indicator allows for comparisons between fields, as it considers the specific characteristics of different fields and their publications. The indicator is calculated for all journals in the Web of Science Core Collection, including journals for which no IF exists. A value of 1.0 represents average performance or impact, with values ​​greater than 1.0 indicating above-average citation impact (2.0 times the average) and values ​​less than 1.0 indicating below-average impact.
  • Quartile ranking: "A journal ranking is determined by dividing journals into quartiles. The first quartile (Q1) represents journals with the highest total citations received within their specific research category."

Scopus: CiteScore, SJR, SNIP

CiteScore, SJR, SNIP are metrics that perform normalization that allows comparison of the impact of journals across disciplines and subject areas, which are developed in the Scopus database.

• Scopus: CiteScore
  A metric for the average number of citations received by all items published in a journal. Calculated only for journals that are developed in the Scopus database, and calculated over a four-year period. Select the Sources option to search by research field, journal name, publisher, and ISSN number. To obtain evaluation metrics, tap the journal name from the search results. When searching for journals by research field, select the Subject Area option and select the relevant research fields from the index.
• SJR = SCImago Journal Rank
  Search by journal name, ISSN number, or publisher name. Provides information about SJR and mainly about the quarterly journals developed in Scopus. Provides visual evaluation metrics, including a comparison between self-citations and author citations.
• Scopus: SNIP = Source Normalized Impact per Paper
  Calculates specific differences in citation patterns across disciplines, based on a 3-year citation window. Expresses the ratio of a given source's average citation to its citation potential: the estimated number of citations a journal will receive in its subject category.

Advantages

• Journal selection: Enables researchers to determine the most suitable leading journals for maximizing their research's visibility within the field.
• Contribution to the reputation of the journal: The journal's success enhances its publication profile and elevates the publisher's prestige.
• Membership in a leading journal system enhances the sense of personal value.
• Selection of quality articles: Enables users to select the highest-quality articles.
• Encouraging competition between journals: Stimulates competition among authors to produce higher-quality content.
• Building a journal collection: Influences decision-making regarding collection development in academia, considering budgetary and space constraints.

Disadvantages

• Self-citations
• Data source: Metrics vary by data source.
• Field of study and preference for mainstream research: Citation counts favor mainstream research and established paradigms. In addition, citation counts can vary greatly by discipline. Scientific articles, especially in the biomedical sciences, are often cited more than journal articles in other fields.
• Article type: Review articles, including articles in book series such as Annual Reviews, may be cited more than research articles.
• Multi-author publications: All authors are given equal credit, but some metrics favor experienced researchers over younger researchers.
• Measuring popularity, not quality: High citation counts may not always indicate high-quality research. A poorly written article can generate numerous review articles, inflating its citations. Conversely, a mediocre journal publishing a high-quality article can see a significant ranking boost.
• Time factor: Ranking methods based on citation counts give a significant advantage to older journals. It can be assumed that between two journals of equal quality, the older journal will receive a greater number of citations.
• Journal level: A ranking method based on citation counts does not reflect possible changes in the level of a given journal.
  Number of articles published in the journal: Methods based on counts give an advantage to journals that publish more articles. The higher the frequency of publication, the greater the number of citations to the journal.
• Database coverage: Citation counts depend on the coverage of the databases, but different databases will provide different citation count numbers.
• Language: Most databases list publications in English, and there is still no database that lists all scientific publications in all languages.

Scopus

Scopus is a subscription-based database, from the Elsevier Repository Group.
Links to current, peer-reviewed research in a variety of fields. Includes peer-reviewed journal articles, commercial publications, series, books, conference papers, and patents. Updated daily.

Functions:

• Evaluation of individual articles and journals in the humanities and arts, exact sciences and social sciences, from 1996 onwards.
• Evaluation of authors.
• Locating leading journals using subject categories.
• Evaluation of refereed journals only, and on the other hand evaluation of all types of articles.
• Providing a profile and history of a journal.
• Comparison between competing journals from different categories.

Scopus evaluation metrics:

• SNIP=Source Normalized Impact per Paper:
  The impact index of each article within the journal, with an emphasis on the research topic. The calculation focuses on the average citations in the article, in relation to the total citations in the subject field.
• SJR=SCImago Journal Rank:
  Reflects the reputation of the journal, with an emphasis on the research topic, quality and reputation of the journal, by calculating the number of citations in the journal and the importance or prestige of the citing journals. The ranking is calculated over a four-year period.
  IPP=Impact per Publication:
  Measures the average citations per year in research articles published in the previous three years, divided by the number of academic articles published in those years.
   

Web of Science

Web of Science is a subscription-based database, part of the Clarivate group of databases for current and peer-reviewed research in diverse fields. Links to articles from peer-reviewed journals in addition to other types of publications. Provides citation count metrics at the article level (Journal Citation Indicator), and metrics at the evaluation level of journals whose articles appear in the database (Journal Impact factor).
In addition, it allows for the receipt of numerical and visual data of the citations.
Includes the JCR – Journal Citation Reports database for evaluating journals according to various metrics.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free search engine from Google. It indexes full text of various types of publications, including non-research publications such as: drafts, theses, presentations and more, which are not indexed in selective databases such as Scopus and Web of Science.
To obtain the number of citations for a selected article, search for the article by its title or by keywords.
The number of citations will appear under the value "Cited by". Clicking on "Cited by" will lead to a list of articles that cited the given article.

Please note: Unlike databases or article indexes, Google Scholar includes double citations as well as citations of non-research sources, such as: presentations, Word documents, course content, and the like.

Lens.Org

Lens.Org is a free search platform from the social enterprise Cambia for locating research articles and global patents. The platform provides article-level citation count metrics, and integrates a large number of search fields and tools for visualizing bibliometric data. In addition, it is possible to identify patents that cite a selected article.

Dimensions

Dimensions is a free database from Digital Science and other companies that provides article-level citation counts and Altmetrics. The database links publications and citations to grants, patents, clinical trials, datasets, and policy documents to create research analysis. In addition, the database provides Altmetrics. The database has several paid versions that allow searching by research institution, access to data on grants (in the free version, you can only see the numbers), clinical trials, and policy documents.

Publication count

Total publications of the author

Total number of citations

The number of times the author's publications were cited by others

H-Index

An index for assessing the quality and impact of a publication, by selecting publications with the same acceptance as the number of citations.

• Calculation method:
  A researcher has an h-index if he has h number of publications, in which each publication has been cited at least h times. For example: a researcher with an h-index of 8 has at least 8 publications, each of which has been cited at least 8 times. As a result, the H-Index specifies the number of publications, the average number of citations per year by others, and the total number of publications made in collaboration with colleagues.
  The index has certain limitations, such as insensitivity to new researchers who do not yet have a large number of studies.

• Limitations of the index:
  • The h-index will not be greater than the number of articles published by the author.
  • The index is not affected by outliers.
  • The index refers to a specific field of research.
  • There are differences in the index scores in different databases.
     

Author Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)

Calculation of the author's average based on his publication history. Limited to 1996 and later.
Calculation of the author's average is similar to the article-level FWCI, which examines the relative impact of an article compared to similar publications:

• FWCI value of 1 = the author has equal impact to other authors.
• FWCI value > 1 = the author has publications that are cited more than average. For example: FWCI of 2.10 = 2.1 times more cited than average.
• FWCI value < 1 = the author has publications that are cited less than average. For example: FWCI of 0.85 = 15% less cited than average.

Please note! The FWCI index for individual articles is available through Scopus, however, measuring FWCI at the author level requires a SciVal subscription (Bar-Ilan University does not have a subscription).

Scopus

Scopus is a subscription-based database, part of the Elsevier group of databases. It provides access to current and peer-reviewed research in a variety of fields. Includes articles from peer-reviewed journals, commercial publications, series, books, conference papers, and patents. Updated daily.
Search in the Search function in the Authors field.
You can find an author profile by searching by author name, ORCID number, and keywords from the research topics. Clicking on the author's name will lead to the author's profile, which includes evaluation metrics, the number of publications, and the number of citations given to each publication.

Web of Science

Web of Science is a subscription-based database, part of the Clarivate group of databases for current and peer-reviewed research in a variety of fields. It links to articles from peer-reviewed journals in addition to other types of publications. It provides citation count indicators at the article level (Journal Citation Indicator), and indicators at the evaluation level of journals whose articles appear in the database (Journal Impact factor).
In addition, it allows you to obtain numerical and visual data on the citations.

• Search by topic: Topic
  Select the relevant publication from the results. Clicking on the author's name will lead to the author's profile, including evaluation indicators, the number of publications and the number of citations given to each publication.
• Search by author name: Cited References
  To unify different versions of the author's name, it is advisable to use the index in the search box to locate the author's name. The search results will include the number of publications, including the number of citations given to each publication.
   

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free Google search engine. It searches full text of various types of publications, including non-research publications such as: drafts, theses, presentations, and more, which are not searched in selective databases such as Scopus and Web of Science.

• Free search by author name: Search results will include the author's publications, including the number of citations: Cited by.
• If the author has a personal profile in Google Scholar, above the author's results, you will receive a link to enter the personal profile page: Below the author's details, the number of the author's publications is ranked, in descending order by the number of citations, and on the right are detailed evaluation metrics and personal profile links of co-authors.
• Advanced search: Allows you to limit the author's name by: Return articles authored by, as well as cross-reference the author's name with keywords, a range of years, and more.
   

Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish is a free software for retrieving and analyzing research citations, from a variety of information resources, some of which are included in the university's subscription. Prior installation is required. Alongside the search results, statistical and research data are displayed, including author evaluation, journal evaluation, and citation ranking.

• Author evaluation:
  Finding the number of citations by author name. Effective in cases where the required author has few citations that are not indexed in recognized databases. Limit the search to Google Scholar or Google Scholar's author profile in advance. You can cross-reference the author's name with an institutional affiliation.
• Journal evaluation:
  Limit the search to Google Scholar and type the journal name. The search results will retrieve article data from the selected journal, ranked by the number of citations.
• Citation ranking:
  Search by keywords and rank the results by the publication/author with the highest total citations. To track citation details, select a relevant publication, then select the option: Retrieve Citing Works in Publish or Perish.

The evaluation metrics are displayed to the right of the search results. Please note! The statistical metrics are partly taken from Google Scholar, which also includes non-research sources.

Altmetric.com

A subscription-based database that allows tracking the impact of publications and diverse research outputs by researchers or research institutes on social networks and other sources on the Internet. Bar-Ilan University does not have a subscription to the database, but the database offers a free tool called: Almetric Bookmarklet for Researchers, which allows you to track the attention an article receives on the Internet. Search limitations: Tracking publications with a DOI that have received at least one citation.

Scopus: PlumX Metrics

Available in Scopus for publications developed by him. Centralizes online traces of end users who have interacted with research, and creates individual evaluation metrics of research outputs (articles, conferences, book chapters, etc.). The evaluation metrics are divided into 5 categories: Usage: access, views, downloads, library holdings, video games Coherence: bookmarks, favorites, citation management software Citations: blog posts, new citations, comments, reviews, Wikipedia citations Social media: likes, shares, etc. Citations: citation keys, patent citations, clinical citations, policy citations, etc. There are additional tools not mentioned in this review.

Advantages

• Speed: Obtaining immediate data on research impact, in contrast to traditional citation-dependent metrics, published and developed in databases.
• Scope: Covering research outputs not included in traditional citation metrics, such as: datasets, software, presentations, videos, etc. – to obtain a more complete picture of research impact.

Limitations

• Are in a state of constant development that is not standard and stable, and therefore may be affected by manipulation.
• Non-academic: Reflect popular influences that are not necessarily research, such as: the influences of professionals or social influences.
• The data sources are unstable and difficult to track over time in a meaningful way. For example: MySpace, Connotea and similar networks that were established and closed after a few years.