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The Graduate Health & Life Sciences Research Library at Georgetown University Medical Center

Research Impact: Promoting and Measuring

With this guide, learn why and how to promote your research and gauge its impact.

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Common Journal Metrics

Journal Impact Factor: this metric attempts to gauge a journal's recent influence within its own discipline by measuring citations directed to the journals' articles within a Journal given time period. This metric is not normalized.

Journal Citation Indicator (JCI): this metric is the average of the Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) of the journal's articles and reviews published in the prior three-year period. CNCI is the ratio of actual citations an article or review received, to expected citations for documents of the same age, type and subject category. This metric is normalized to a journal's subject category, publication year, and document type.

Immediacy Index: "this is the count of citations in the current year to the journal that reference content in this same year. Journals that have a consistently high Immediacy Index attract citations rapidly." Helpful to indentify journals that publish cutting-edge studies. This metric is not normalized.

Eigenfactor Score: this metric attempts to judge the overall importance of the journal by calculating the quantity of incoming citations as well as their source's ranking (the citing journal's overall quality). This metric is not normalized but they do provide a normalized version of the calculation.

Caveats

  • The Journal Impact Factor is not normalized, so the metric will vary by discipline.
  • The Journal Impact Factor is measured at the journal-level and not at the author- or article-level.
  • The Journal Impact Factor can be calculated and displayed with or without self-citations
  • Metrics can be affected by self-citations and a select number of highly cited articles.

Finding Journal Metrics