Journal Citation Reports (JCR): Clarivate Announces Changes to Journal Impact Factor Category Rankings

From a Clarivate Blog Post:

Over the past few years, we have implemented a series of policy changes for the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)™ aimed at aligning coverage between the Web of Science Core Collection™ and the JCR, providing more transparency of the data underlying JCR metrics encouraging a more inclusive, more holistic way of comparing journals.

[Clip]

Recent changes to the JCR have included the addition of profile pages for journals indexed in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI)™ and Emerging Sources Citation Index (EHCI)™ and the introduction of the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) in 2021. The JCI is field-normalized to facilitate the comparison of journals across different disciplines, including the arts and humanities. We also extended the Journal Impact Factor (JIF)™ to AHCI and ESCI journals in 2023 so that it now encompasses all quality journals in the Web of Science Core Collection.

[Clip]

In making these changes, we have evolved the JIF from an indicator of scholarly impact (the numerical value of the JIF) in the sciences and social sciences to an indicator of both scholarly impact and trustworthiness (having a JIF – regardless of the number) across all disciplines at the journal level.

In 2023, we also changed the way the JIF is displayed – transitioning from three decimal places to one. This is important as it created more ties in JIF rankings to encourage consideration of additional indicators and descriptive factors alongside the JIF when comparing journals.

Our commitment to enhancing transparency and trust continues in the forthcoming JCR release in June 2024. Two notable changes, which we announced last year, will be implemented in the JIF category rankings.

We will move from edition-specific category JIF rankings to unified rankings for each of our 229 science and social science categories.

We will no longer provide separate JIF rankings for the nine subject categories that are indexed in multiple editions. For example, the Psychiatry category is included in both Science Citation Index – Expanded (SCIE)™ and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)™ and we currently publish a separate Psychiatry ranking for each edition. We will replace these separate rankings with a single, unified ranking.

Additionally, the new unified rankings will include journals indexed in ESCI. Using Psychiatry once again as our example – we will display a single Psychiatry ranking that includes journals indexed in SCIE, SSCI and ESCI.

[Clip]

This is the first in a series of updates on the 2024 JCR.

Learn More, Read the Complete Blog Post

Filed under: Data Files, News, Reports