Citation Impact Center

Understanding the Journal Impact Factor

Over the years, Thomson Reuters employees have answered thousands of questions about the Journal Impact Factor, how it is calculated, what does it mean, how are the data prepared. We are continuing to broaden our efforts to maintain open and cooperative communication with scholars, publishers and librarians to support the proper use of the Journal Impact Factor. The September 9, 2009 issue of JAMA-Journal of the American Medical Association contains a Commentary prepared by members of Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports team. This writing describes in detail the determination of citable items (the denominator of the Journal Impact Factor calculation), and how the distinction between citable and non-citable items affects the Journal Impact Factor.

The first 150 words of the article can be viewed at the following link. Access to the full text is available to JAMA subscribers.

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Available now! 2008 Journal Citation Reports®

Each year we get a number of phone calls and emails asking when we’ll release this year’s edition of Journal Citation Reports. We're happy to announce the 2008 Journal Citation Reports® were released Friday, June 19th, 2009. There are a number of exciting new elements in this latest release of Journal Citation Reports, our comprehensive tool for systematically evaluating the world's leading journals.

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Choosing Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates:
The Process and the Results

In anticipation of the Nobel Prize announcements for 2008, which will begin on October 6, Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) is once again revealing its own list of Laureates — in this case, Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates.

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Preserving the Integrity of The Journal Impact Factor Guidelines from the Scientific business of Thomson Reuters

The Journal Impact Factor is a proprietary metric, published annually by the Scientific business of Thomson Reuters via Journal Citation Reports (JCR). JCR provides a number of metrics and quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, and categorizing and comparing journals.

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H-index: The hottest topic in information science today

In late 2005, Jorge E. Hirsch, Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego, published an article describing the h-index, which, he called "a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher." (See J.E. Hirsch, "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output," PNAS, 102(46): 16569-72, 15 November 2005.

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Thomson Scientific Speaks with David Tempest, Elsevier

As Associate Director of Research and Academic Relations for Elsevier, one of the world's foremost scholarly publishers, bibliometrician David Tempest and his team provide the analysis to advise Elsevier's 2,000 journals on maximizing their quality. He is a frequent lecturer on the uses (and misuses) of Impact Factor. Today, David talks with Thomson Scientific about the relationship between Impact Factor and journal quality, and Elsevier's commitment to best practice with the use of bibliometrics.

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Thomson Scientific speaks with Jim Testa, Thomson Scientific's Director of Editorial Development, about Impact Factor

As Thomson Scientific's Director of Editorial Development, Jim Testa travels the globe working with researchers, institutions and scholarly journals to understand their research needs in the areas of both content and evaluation. Here, we talk with Jim about the controversial, yet ever present Impact Factor, a proprietary measure of journal influence created in the 1950s by Thomson Scientific's Chairman Emeritus, (ISI Founder) Dr. Eugene Garfield.

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Thomson Scientific speaks with Jim Pringle, Thomson Scientific's Vice President of Product Development, about Impact Factor

Today, Jim Pringle, Thomson Scientific Vice President of Product Development, shares with us his insights into research performance metrics, including his unique perspective of the much-talked-about Journal Impact Factor.

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