Sally Gore, MS, MSLIS
Manager, Research & Scholarly Communications Services
sally.gore@umassmed.edu
508-856-1966
Lisa Palmer, MSLS, AHIP
Institutional Repository Librarian
lisa.palmer@umassmed.edu
508-856-4368
Tess Grynoch, MLIS
Research Data & Scholarly Communications Librarian
tess.grynoch@umassmed.edu
508-856-2467
Leah Honor, MLIS
Research Data & Scholarly Communications Librarian
leah.honor@umassmed.edu
508-856-2458
Please refer to our guides for specific information about:
The Impact Factor is a long-standing metric commonly used to evaluate journals. It is an equation calculating the average citation frequency for a given journal over a given period of time. It is a ratio of citations to citable items. Generally speaking, the higher the number, the higher the quality and prestige of the journal, although the impact factor is most useful when evaluating journals within the same discipline.
The journal Impact Factor was invented in the 1960s by Eugene Garfield and was intended as a tool to help librarians make selection decisions and authors identify publishing venues. Today, the Impact Factor is a propriety calculation that is available only through Thompson Reuters Journal Citation Reports.
Pros
Cons
Eigenfactor: A measure of a journal's overall importance to the scientific community based on the origin of incoming citations over a period of time; citations from highly ranked journals are weighed more heavily. (Hosted by the University of Washington; built on Thomson Reuters bibliographic data.)
Journal Metrics: Publicly accessible metrics for journal evaluation that offer three alternative views of true citation impact of a journal. (Provided by Elsevier; built on Scopus bibliographic data.)
Based on the Comparison Table of SNIP, SJR, IF, AI and JFIS in "The evolution of journal assessment," [white paper] by Journal Metrics (2011).