The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Clarivate is one of the most well-known research metrics available to authors and others who are involved with research assessment. It’s a journal-level metric that uses two years of citation data to help give an idea of how often documents from a journal are getting cited by other papers. Having a high JIF in an assigned subject category can be one indication that a journal is well-read and visible. This makes the JIF a metric that authors can use, alongside other important considerations, to help decide where to publish.
In March 2023, Clarivate announced changes coming to their Journal Citation Reports (JCR) platform, which is the official resource that includes the JIF alongside other metrics in a journal’s record. Two of the changes that are important to note here are that JIFs have been expanded to include more journals from the Web of Science, and that JIFs are now displayed differently than before. These changes are a move to decrease the importance of using the JIF as a major influence for research assessment and journal choice. Of all the research metrics available, JIFs have frequently been misused to evaluate authors and the quality of individual articles. With these changes, Clarivate is encouraging the use of additional metrics available in JCR and elsewhere for evaluating the impact of a journal.
As previously mentioned, only certain journals indexed in Web of Science are assigned a JIF. These journals must meet quality standards (e.g., peer review process, editorial board, policies related to publication ethics, etc.) and maintain certain citation impact thresholds over time. In the recent change to JCR, Clarivate now issues JIFs to journals in their Arts and Humanities Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index, two indexes that were previously excluded. This will increase the number of journals that receive a JIF by 9,000—making it a much more common metric than before.
The other change, which was applied to the 2022 JIFs released this summer, is that JIFs are now displayed with one decimal place instead of three. This will result in more ties between journals and may affect journal quartile distribution. For example, the number of Quartile 1 journals (the highest ranked) may increase, while the number of Quartile 4 journals (the lowest ranked) may decrease.
If you have any questions about how these changes to the JIF might affect you, feel free to reach out to HSLS Publishing Services to ask a question or schedule a consultation to discuss your project. Librarians at HSLS are ready to help you understand how to use journal metrics to help decide where to publish, or use other kinds of research metrics to help communicate your impact.
~Stephen Gabrielson