Despite attempts to make journal impact factors more sophisticated critics argue that are still a crude numeric metric. Caution should be exercised in comparing journals across disciplines. It is also worth noting that however the journal impact is measured it does not necessarily reflect the impact that the research has had in the 'real world'.
Before you contact journals to publish your research, it's important that you identify credible, relevant, and impactful journals in which to publish your work, in addition to evaluating individual journals themselves. In other words, identifying journals for publication often requires more research!
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You can use Ulrichsweb to find out if specific journals are identified as peer reviewed as well as format, indexing, frequency, circulation, etc. |
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JCR lists both the Impact Factor and the EigenFactor scores (if available) |
Journal Citation Reports uses an algorithm based on the average number of citations/ to articles published in journals - to calculate a journal's Impact Factor (IF). JCR uses a core list of about 8,700 journal titles when calculating the Impact Factors of journals.
Eigenfactor is a way of determining a journal’s relative importance, but this approach uses both the number of "incoming" citations to the journals as well as what is determined to be the total importance of the journal to the scientific community.
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Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Membership in this association indicates a commitment to abiding by certain standards and a code of conduct.
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Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. While most researchers are familiar with the well-established journals in their field, that is often not the case with newer publications or publications in related fields - there're simply too many of them to keep track of! Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications, to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research. |
Many journals do not have an impact factor!
* The impact factor cannot assess the quality of individual articles. Even if citations were evenly distributed among articles, the impact factor would only measure the interests of other researchers in an article, not its importance and usefulness
* Only research article, technical notes and reviews are 'citable' items. Editorials, letters, news items and meeting abstracts are not always citable
* Only a small percentage of articles are highly cited and they are found in a small subset of journals. This small proportion accounts for a large percentage of citations.
* Controversial papers, such as those based on fraudulent data, may be highly cited, distorting the impact factor of a journal
* Citation bias may exist. For example, English language resources may be favoured OR Authors may cite their own work.
* Bottom Line: Use more than one tool!
Checking Journal Quality
Blobaum's Checklist for Review of Journal Quality for Submission of Scholarly Manuscripts This is a working paper is a checklist of quality indicators.
Thinkchecksubmit A checklist developed by scholarly publishing organizations and journals, questions to ask yourself before you submit and article to a journal you might not be familiar with.
Quality Open Access Market is a crowd-sourced effort that rates journals with score cards Green for strong, Yellow for weak, Red for Threat to authors and Blue for opportunity for publishers.
Not certain?
Ulrich's Web is a global serial directory. The directory is accessible online through the Library's resources here. Ulrich's Web publishes information about journals such as: publisher information, online availability, subject classifications, how often the serial is published, whether or not the journal is peer-reviewed, and much more.
You can also browse article titles by issue for specific journals. This can be a quick way to get a sense of a more detailed sense of the journal's discipline and research focus.
Identifying professors and scholars in your discipline can be a valuable way to learn about journals. Use their expertise to get a better overall view of the publishing community in your research focus. If you can't find a scholar that specializes in your discipline.
Find someone in your department who can serve as a mentor.
Some databases and publishers have already done the work for you by compiling lists and databases specifically designed to examine impact:
Predatory publishers prey on scholars using many of the same techniques as phishing scams, e.g. email blasts with plausible stories. These publishers often approach scholars through email inviting submissions without mentioning publishing fees. Predatory publishers are characterized by the following deceptive practices:
Note: The presence of a publishing fee does not mean the journal is predatory.
