Citation Analysis (Bibliometrics)

In the scholarly environment, a high-impact journal title is often perceived as a journal of choice when compared to a lower-impact journal - whether you are a researcher deciding where to publish, or a reader consulting journals for further research. In citation analysis (a form of bibliometrics), impact is commonly measured according to citation counts, which can be applied at different levels:

• Article impact: the number of times a specific article has been cited.

• Author impact: the number of times, or average number of times, a specific author’s publications have been cited.

• Journal impact: the average citation count for articles published by a journal over a defined time period (for example, the two-year window used for the Journal Impact Factor).

The more open an article, the higher its visibility, the easier its accessibility and the greater the likelihood that it will be read, used and cited. To increase visibility and potential impact, journals are encouraged to publish open access and to use open, machine-readable standards for metadata. This allows search engines, indexing services and directories to harvest and interpret metadata efficiently, creating multiple access points through which individual articles can be discovered.

Altmetrics

Altmetrics (alternative metrics) complement traditional citation counts by capturing other dimensions of research impact and attention. These may include:

• Article views and downloads

• Mentions in social media and news media

• References in policy documents and other knowledge bases

• Saves and readership in reference managers and academic networking platforms
  
  

Altmetrics therefore provide a broader picture of how research outputs are being accessed, discussed, and used beyond formal scholarly citations.

See Altmetric.com for tools and further information.

Journal Citation Impact

The citation impact of specific journal titles are listed:

• InCites Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters WoS) (subscription required)

• SCImago Journal & Country Rank (Elsevier Scopus)

• Publish or Perish: Download

• Google Scholar Metrics

• Google Scholar Citations Profile - can be created for a specific journal. Examples:

  • South African Journal of Science

  • South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science

  • Acta Theologica

  • African Human Rights Law Journal

  • South African Journal of Industrial Engineering

  • South African Medical Journal

Apply/register a Journal Impact Metric

Journal editors can apply for journal impact metrics using the following:

• Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics WoS): Criteria - Submit

• SCImago Journal & Country Rank (Elsevier Scopus): Journal List - Criteria

• Publish or Perish: Download

• Google Scholar Metrics: Guidelines

• Google Scholar Citations Profile (create own): Create

Useful Links

• The Impact Factor and its Discontents

• The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

• The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers' citations in the digital age

• Study reveals declining influence of high impact factor journals

• The Big IF: Is Journal Impact Factor really so important?

• The rise and fall of PLOS ONE's Impact Factor

• Thinking about prestige, quality and open accessCitation Analysis (Bibliometrics)