Journal Metrics are used to measure the performance or impact of individual academic journals. They vary from the basic premise of counting the average number of citations made to articles in specific journals, to offering different perspectives on the scholarly publishing landscape by using different methodologies and data sources.
|
|
CiteScore |
JIF |
SJR |
SNIP |
|
Normalized by Field |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
|
Normalized by Item Type (article vs. Book etc.) |
N |
N |
N |
N |
|
Freely Available |
Y |
N |
Y |
Y |
|
Evaluation Period (Years) |
4 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
|
Provided by |
Elsevier |
Clarivate |
SCImago Research Group (using Scopus data) |
Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) (using Scopus data) |
If a journal metric is not normalized by field, this means that it should not be used to compare journals from two different fields / research areas.
If a journal metric is not normalized by item type, this usually means that the calculations took many different types of publications into consideration. For example, CiteScore uses articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and data papers (What is CiteScore?, 2025). This might provide a more holistic view of the impact of a journal, but it should also be acknowledged that certain types of publications, for example journal articles, tend to be cited more items than others, and this could skew the average citation numbers across all publications.