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Understanding Journal and Article Metrics

Understanding Journal and Article Metrics

October 16, 2023

Consider a broad range of journal and article metrics to decide which journal will help you achieve your goals of getting the best reach, recognition and impact when submitting your research.

Metrics commonly displayed on Wiley journals

Journal Citation Indicator

Metric Source Clarivate Web of Science

The Journal Citation Indicator is a field-normalized measure of citation impact where a value of 1.0 means, across the journal, published papers received a number of citations equal to the average citation count in that subject category.

World average is set to 1.0. Values above 1.0 indicate a higher average citation impact (2.0 being twice the average), whilst values lower than 1.0 indicate a less than average.

82% of authors feel the Journal Citation Indicator is important when choosing where to submit their research

How is it calculated?

The number of citations to documents published in a 4-year period by the number of documents in the same 4-year period.

CiteScore 

Metric Source Scopus

CiteScore is a measure that looks at the average citations per document that a journal receives over a fixed number of years. It provides a comprehensive, transparent view of a journal’s impact.

Altmetric Badge

Metric Source Digital Science

Measures social visibility around scientific articles. Metrics are based on a broad spectrum of indicators, such as tweets, blog mentions, news media, social bookmarking, article views and downloads.

70% of authors strongly agree usage metrics such as Altmetric will become more important in evaluating the quality of open access research

How is it calculated?

Number of citations in one year to content published in previous two years ÷ number of articles and reviews published within the previous two years.

Journal Impact Factor

Metric Source Clarivate Web of Science

The Journal Impact Factor measures the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period. The annual JCR impact factor is a ratio between citations and recent citable items published.

5-Year Journal Impact Factor

Metric Source Clarivate Web of Science

The average number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR.


How is it calculated?

Number of citations in the JCR divided by the total number of articles published in the 5 previous years.

78% of authors strongly agree that journal level metrics are important in evaluating the quality of open access research

How is it calculated?

Number of citations given in the present year to publications in the past three years total number of publications in the past three years. 

Source Normalized Impact Per Paper (SNIP)

Metric Source Scopus

The Source Normalized Impact Per Paper (SNIP) measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field, making the metric more comparable across different disciplines. 

Scite Citation Badge

Metric Source Scite

Smart Citations allow users to see how a publication has been cited by providing the context of the citation and a classification describing whether it provides supporting or contrasting evidence for the cited claim. 

Over 80% of authors feel that turnaround time metrics are important in their decision in submitting to a journal

Submission to First Decision

Metric Source Journal data

Time in days between timestamps or dates if no timestamp is available, between the received date and the date that an editor makes any type of decision, including desk rejections, rejection without receiving external peer review and withdrawals, on that first submitted version of a paper. This is calculated and displayed as a median.   

Submission to Acceptance

Metric Source Journal data

The time in days between timestamps, or dates if no timestamp is available, between the received date and the date that an editor makes any type of accept or reject decision on the latest submitted version of a paper (i.e., where multiple revisions have been submitted, the latest paper). This is calculated and displayed as a median.  

Acceptance Rates

Metric Source Journal data

Percentage of papers accepted during a given period as a proportion of all papers arriving at a final decision in that period. This is calculated according to the final decision date rather than the year in which the paper was submitted. *Note: the Acceptance Rate metric includes rejections with no review. Acceptance rates can be impacted by the Journal’s scope, peer review model (sound science vs. selective), commissioning strategy (invited reviews, special issues), eligible document types, study design requirements, and many other factors.  


How is it calculated?

Number of accepted papers ÷ number of submitted papers. 

78% of authors strongly agree that journal level metrics are important in evaluating the quality of open access research

 

Find out more 

For more information about journal and article metrics, visit Wiley’s Journal metrics.

*Not every journal will have these metrics available. Clarivate and Scopus metrics require a journal to be indexed which is a selective process. If a journal has not applied for indexing, or has not been accepted for indexing, then it may not display all the available metrics.

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