Dr.

Pinki Insan
Assistant Professor of
Commerce
MDU Rohtak (IGPGRC)
JOURNAL IMPACT FACTOR
WAS INVENTED BY
THOMSON REUTER (ISI). ISI
was founded by Eugene
Garfield in 1958
Eugene Garfield
 Journal Impact Factor is from
Journal Citation Report (JCR),
a product of Thomson ISI

(Institute for Scientific

Information).
The Journal Impact Factor is
defined as the number of
citations in current year to
items published in the
previous two years, divided
by the total number of items
published in those same
two years.
Basic Definitions
 IMPACT = EFFECT

 CITATION= ENTRIES IN A LIST OF

REFERENCES AT THE END OF AN
ARTICLE, CHAPTER, BOOK, ETC

 DATABASE=COLLECTION OF RECORDS
ABOUT, FOR EXAMPLE, ARTICLES
PUBLISHED IN A PARTICULAR FIELD.
 The Impact Factor for a given
year is defined as the total
number of citations received in
that year to articles published in
the previous two years divided
by the total number of citable
items (source items) published
by the journal in those two
years.
 Impact factor is the ratio of number
of citations received by source
items in a particular year to the
number of source items published
over a fixed period of time in a
particular periodic publication, say
a journal Source items: original
articles, editorials letters short
communications report of meetings
correction, notes review articles
etc.
Timing
The Impact Factors for a
given year are published
annually in
September/October of the
following year in the
Journal Citation Reports
(JCR).
An Impact Factor of 1.0 means that,
on average, the articles published
one or two year ago have been
cited one time.

An Impact Factor of 2.5 means

that, on average, the articles
published one or two year ago
have been cited two and a half
times.
 The impact factor for a
journal is calculated based
on a three-year period, and
can be considered to be the
average number of times
published papers are cited
up to two years after
publication.
Calculation
 For example, the impact factor 2010 for a
journal would be calculated as follows:
A = the number of times articles published in
2008-9 were cited in indexed journals during
2010
B = the number of articles, reviews,
proceedings or notes published in 2008-
2009

Impact factor 2010 = A/B

The impact factor 2009 will
be actually published in 2010,
because it could not be
calculated until all of the
2009 publications had been
received. Impact factor 2010
will be published in 2011
Calculating the BMJ’s impact factor for
2003
Computation of Journal Impact Factor
Key points related to Journal Impact factor
 Journal Impact Factor can not be calculated for
new journals. I mean “the impact factor of a
journal is calculated by dividing the number of
current year citations to the source items
published in that journal during the previous two
years”, hence impact factor can be calculated
after completing the minimum of 3 years of
publication.

 Journal Impact Factor will be a quotient factor

only and will not be a quality factor.
•Journal Impact Factor will not be related to
quality of content and quality of peer
review, it is only a measure of the frequency
with which the "average article" in a journal
has been cited in a particular year or period.

•Journal which publishes more review

articles will get highest impact
COMPUTATION

 C1+C2
S1+S2
C1 denotes the number of citations received by S1
source items in the year Y
C2 denotes the number of citations received by S2
source items in the year Y
S1 denotes the number of source items published in
the journal J in the year Y-1.

S2 denotes the number of source items published in

the journal J in the year Y-2
Example
 Suppose the journal j has published 32
and 36 sources in 2007 and 2008
respectively. These source items have
received respectively 40 and 28 citations
in 2009.Now the impact factor of the
journal j will be

40+28/32+36=1
Features
 It is not a constant like the specific
gravity of water
 The number is expressed up to three
digits after decimal in JCR e. g. 2.319
 It is year- specific.
 It is database specific.
 Value of impact factor generally lies
between 0 and 50.
 It varies from subject to subject.

 The impact factor indicates the

standing of the journal in the world.

 The impact factor may be

considered as an indication of the
quality of the journal in most cases.
Uses
 Selection of journals for library:
standing of journals in the world.

 Discontinuation of journals: Journals

figuring at the bottom of the ranked list
are choosen.

 Palacing a paper: journal citation

report.
Uses of Impact factor
 The impact factor is only one of three
standardized
 measures created by the Institute of
Scientific Information
 (ISI) which can be used to measure the
way a journal
 receives citations to its articles over
time.
The best way to keep track of who is citing you.

 •Have a very complete copy of your

publications

 •Use Web of Science and Google

Scholar. They will produce overlapping
and unique results
 •The Impact Factor is a an attempt to ensure the
impact a journal has.

 •It is designed to “scale” the number of times a

journal has been cited.

 •The older an article is, the more opportunities it

has to have been cited.

 •Some disciplines have more people working in

them (child psychology vs. demography; surgery
vs. mycology)
JCR Home Page

Science and Social Science

editions must be searched Before starting, click on
separately Information for New
Users and read “Using
the JCR Wisely.”
Journal Search Screen

You can search by Full

Journal Title, Journal
Abbreviation, Title Word,
or ISSN. Select Title
Word from the menu.
JOURNAL SUMMARY
LIST

Click on title
link to display
full record.
Source Data
Review articles are often more highly cited
than original research articles: consider a
journal’s source data by document type.

 Tallies the number of original research and review articles published in the current year (2005)
 Also tallies the number of references published by the selected journal in the current year
 Other Items = document types not included in the number of citable items published by this journal (e.g.
letters, news items, editorials, etc.)
Cited Journal List

References to all
older articles.
Publication year of
cited article.
A list of journals
which have cited
Atmosphere-
Ocean within 2004
Citing Journal List

The publication year of

the articles being cited

A list of journals that

Atmosphere-Ocean has
cited within 2004.
Impact Factor Trend Graph
Examine Subject Categories