Publication Quality + Evaluation

Introduced by Dr. Jorge Hirsch at The University of California, San Diego, h-index is the highest number h where the journal has published h articles that have been cited h times.

• So if a journal puts out 50 articles that have each been cited 50 times, its h-index is 50. 
• If it put out 50 articles that are each cited 5 times, its h-index is 5.
• If it put out 8 articles that are each cited 50 times, its h-index is 8.

As this metric is free, you can find it on most citation tracking sites.

However, since different sites track different subsets of journals, a journal's h-index will be different depending on the site used.

Impact factor is the most well known journal metric. 

Impact factor is calculated by dividing all the citations the journal got in the most recent year by the sum of the eligible articles put out in that year and the year before. So the impact factor for 2020 is

• C₂₀₂₀ / (A₂₀₁₉+A₂₀₂₀)
  • where C₂₀₂₀ is all the citations the journal got in 2020 and A₂₀₁₉, A₂₀₂₀ is all the eligible articles published by the journal in years 2019 and 2020.

Impact factor is put out by Journal Citation Reports.

Scopus gives two metrics related to journals.

• The Citescore is simply the number of citations divided by the number of articles published.
• The Citescore rank is the journal's position among other journals in the field(s), as ordered by Citescore.

Scopus only tracks a subset of the journals, so :

• the number of citations that it counts for the Citescore will be different from the citation count for a journal in other places
• the number or journals counted in a field will be different than as listed in other places
• if a journal does not have a Citescore, it is not a bad journal

Scimago Journal Ranking uses data from Scopus, so if a journal is in Scopus, it is in Scimago. Scimago makes some information clearer than Scopus and has additional metric graphs. Scimago's most notable metric is their journal category quartiles.

Scimago's data is only available from Scimago

Google Scholar has an easily accessible h-index and citation.

Google Scholar has the widest range of journals is counts, so it's metrics are usually higher than Scopus or Journal Citation Reports.

Altmetrics are metrics beyond citation by other research articles. This includes citation by Wikipedia, sharing to social media, media coverage, etc.

Acceptance rate tells you how picky the journal is.  For many journals, the acceptance rate is available through Cabell's Journalytics. <- link here

Google Scholar gives the citation metrics for all articles it counts,

Because Google Scholar counts the largest set of journals and thus articles, it's metrics are usually higher than others.

Altmetrics are metrics beyond citation by other research articles. This includes citation by Wikipedia, sharing to social media, media coverage, etc.