LONDON, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Plc
(NYSE: CLVT), a global leader in providing trusted information
and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today announced
that in the 2023 release of the Journal Citation Reports all Web of
Science Core Collection™ journals will receive a Journal
Impact Factor (JIF)™. This means expanding the JIF from Science
Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)™ and Social Science Citation Index
(SSCI)™ to include journals from the Arts and Humanities Citation
Index (AHCI)™ and the multidisciplinary Emerging Sources
Citation Index (ESCI)™.
The annual JCR release enables the research community,
publishers and librarians to evaluate and compare the scholarly
impact of the world's high-quality journals using a range of
indicators, descriptive data and visualizations.
By expanding the JIF to all journals that have passed the
rigorous Web of Science quality criteria, this latest enhancement
helps level the playing field for all quality journals including
recently-launched journals, open access journals, journals with a
niche or regionally-focused scope and journals from the Global
South.
It means that:
- Almost 9,000 journals – from more than 3,000 publishers,
many of which are smaller publishers from the developing world –
will have a JIF for the first time.
- There will be an 8% increase in gold open access
journals that will have a JIF.
- There will be a minimum 5% increase in journals from the
Global South1 that will have a JIF.
In addition, the 2023 release of the Journal Citation Reports
will display the JIF with one decimal place, rather than the
current three decimal places, to encourage users to consider the
other indicators and descriptive data in the JCR when comparing
journals.
Dr Nandita Quaderi, Editor in
Chief and Editorial Vice President, Web of Science said:
"To accelerate the pace of innovation research funders,
institutions and researchers need to be able to make decisions
based on quality data they can trust. We have made the decision to
display Journal Impact Factors for all journals that are indexed in
the Web of Science Core Collection as part of our ongoing
commitment to the integrity of the scholarly record. Our rigorous
selection process allows us to keep untrustworthy journals out of
our indexes, which coupled with our careful data curation means
that the research community can rely on the data and metrics in the
Journal Citation Reports.
"Giving all quality journals a Journal Impact Factor will
provide full transparency to articles and citations that have
contributed to impact, and therefore will help them demonstrate
their value to the research community. This decision is aligned to
our position that publications in all quality journals, not
just highly cited journals, should be eligible for inclusion in
research assessment exercises."
No changes will be made to the JCR until the next annual release
in June 2023.
Ludo Waltman, professor of Quantitative Science Studies at the
Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden
University, the Netherlands said:
"The JIF needs to co-evolve with the changing expectations of
researchers, research managers and evaluators. I welcome the
expansion of the JIF to all journals in Web of Science Core
Collection. This is a significant step toward a more inclusive
perspective on the journal landscape."
Dr Quaderi adds: "Community consultation on these changes has
included individual discussions with publishers, librarians and
bibliometricians as well as quantitative community surveys. We
encourage anyone with further feedback on the changes to contact us
at ISI@clarivate.com."
A history of responsible research evaluation and product
innovation
The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)™
at Clarivate has a long history of promoting integrity in research
and evaluation. Through their Global Research Reports and academic
papers, they have already explained what best practice for research
evaluation should look like, from their 2019 report Profiles
Not Metrics, to submitting evidence to the Parliamentary Science
and Technology Select Committee in the UK and the EU Coalition
for Reforming Research Assessment. The 2020 report Research
Integrity: Understanding our shared responsibility for a
sustainable scholarly ecosystem reviews the different kinds of
behavior that undermine research integrity.
Each journal profile in the JCR provides a rich array of journal
intelligence metrics and allows users to filter by category and
rank. These include:
- The Journal Citation Indicator, which represents the average
category-normalized citation impact for papers published in the
prior three-year period. All journals in the JCR have been eligible
to receive this metric from 2021
- The Immediacy Index, which measures how frequently the
journal's content is cited within the same year as
publication;
- The journal's rank in category, determined by Journal Impact
Factor, expressed as a percentile;
- Cited half-life, which is the median age, in years, of items in
the journal that were cited during the JCR year
In addition, the Journal Citation Reports include descriptive
data such as open access content, top contributing institutions and
regions.
To aid responsible researcher evaluation Clarivate provides
comprehensive researcher profiles in the Web of Science that
include a variety of metrics, from citations to peer review, Web of
Science Author Impact Beamplots and full CVs which individuals can
use to promote their full academic profile.
Notes to editors
What is the Emerging Sources Citation Index?
Journals included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index cover
all disciplines and range from international and broad scope
publications to those that provide deeper regional or specialty
area coverage. More than 3 million records and 74.4 million cited
references date back from 2005 to present. Part of the Web of
Science Core Collection™, Emerging Sources Citation Index contains
quality publications, selected by our expert in-house editors for
editorial rigor and best practice at a journal level.
Visit the Journal Citation Reports website to
explore all available data, metrics and analysis. You can find more
information including our suppression policy in the Journal
Citation Reports Reference Guide.
Follow us on Twitter via @ClarivateAG #JCR2023.
About Clarivate
Clarivate™ is a global leader in providing solutions to
accelerate the pace of innovation. Our bold mission is to help
customers solve some of the world's most complex problems by
providing actionable information and insights that reduce the time
from new ideas to life-changing inventions in the areas of Academia
& Government, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Professional
Services and Consumer Goods, Manufacturing & Technology. We
help customers discover, protect and commercialize their inventions
using our trusted subscription and technology-based solutions
coupled with deep domain expertise. For more information, please
visit clarivate.com.
Media Contact
Rebecca Krahenbuhl
External Communications Manager (Academia and Government)
newsroom@clarivate.com
1 Using the United Nations definition:
http://www.fc-ssc.org/en/partnership_program/south_south_countries
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