Where can I find a journal’s impact factor using resources available at MRU?

Check the journal webpage:

 Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR) provides the most commonly cited impact factor, but MRU does not subscribe to this resource. However, you can often find impact factor information on the journal’s homepage, especially for journals in sciences, medicine, social sciences, and business. Impact factors are less frequently listed in arts and humanities, but checking individual journal pages can be helpful.

Examples of journals that list impact factors on their webpages:

• Canadian Journal of Public Health
• Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Art Therapy

Use Scopus  to retrieve journal impact factors

MRU subscribes to, provides alternative metrics such as CiteScore, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), and SCImago Journal and Country Rank. These metrics offer similar insights into a journal’s impact. Click on a journal title from your search results within Scopus to view these measures. More about the different metrics and impact factors available in Scopus.

What does the impact factor measure?

Journal impact factors are commonly used metrics that can be used to provide an indication of a journal’s influence or importance within its field..

How is the impact factor calculated?

The traditional Journal Impact Factor, provided by Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR), is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the previous two years. For example, an Impact Factor of 1.0 means that articles published one or two years ago have been cited, on average, once. Citations can come from within the same journal or from others.

Over the years, various organizations have developed similar journal-level metrics, such as the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (a free resource).

What is a "good" impact factor?

Impact factors vary widely by discipline, so there’s no single answer. Reviewing how journals are ranked within specific fields can provide perspective on what constitutes a high-impact journal in your area. Scopus also offers tools to explore these metrics by subject area.

What are some criticisms of journal impact factors?

While widely used, journal impact factors have limitations, some of which include:

• Skewed citation distribution: Citation rates can be uneven, with a few highly cited papers impacting the metric disproportionately.
• Potential for manipulation: Editorial practices, such as encouraging authors to cite articles from the same journal, can artificially boost the impact factor.
• Transparency concerns: The data and methodology behind the impact factor are not openly accessible to the public.

For assistance with finding journal metrics or understanding how to assess journal impact, connect with your subject librarian.