Impact factor of the journal. This meaning, created by Eugene Garfield and Irving Sher, refers to a specific journal, not an individual researcher.
The impact factor is an indicator of the significance of a scientific publication, determined by the number of references to published materials for a certain period. The criterion has been used since 1961, and represents an authoritative, independent assessment of the journal, as well as its prospects, and the value of the articles presented in it, it is calculated annually by the Institute for Scientific Information and published in the Journal Citation Report. The calculation of the impact factor does not apply to letters from readers, scientific reviews of news / books, background information, author’s comments, editorial notes.
The calculation of the impact factor does not apply to letters from readers, scientific reviews of news / books, background information, author’s comments, editorial notes.
The impact factor of a journal is based on two elements: the numerator, which is the number of citations in the current year to any articles published in the journal in the previous 2 years; and the denominator is the number of main articles (source materials) published in the same 2 years.
Calculation of the impact factor of the journal:
IF = A: B, where A = the number of references to articles published in the publication, B = the time interval.
Number of citations in 2020.
How to find out the impact factor of a journal
Since each information and analytical IT platform uses its own scientometric tools, the IF can be found on the official websites of well-known international databases, where these publications are indexed.
Where can you reliably look at the impact factor of the journal?
- On the website of the magazine
- In the Web of Science Core Collection database
- In the Journal Citation Reports tool
Go to the Web of Science platform
Web of Science Core Collections
Journal Citiation Reports
Impact factor, as a numerical indicator of the citation of a journal, was developed exclusively for the WOS platform (WEB OF SCIENCE). Only journals that are indexed in WOS can have IFs. Scopus journals do not have an impact factor if they are not simultaneously indexed in WOS.
Not all magazines have an impact factor! This indicator has those journals that are included in the core of the WOS Core Collection, or rather in the following two bases from this core: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), IF is also calculated for journals included in the RSCI and some other databases. For example, for journals in the Scopus abstract database, the citation index of the journal (CiteScore) is relevant.
Journal Impact Factor Information in WebofScienceCoreCollection
There are two ways to determine the impact factor of a journal in the Web of Science Core Collection:
1. Use the publication name search after selecting the Web of Science Core Collection database.
In the list of publications that opens, click on the name of the journal.
2. Use the Journal Citation Reports.