Measuring Your Research Impact: Journal Impact

Eigenfactor Score

The number of times, in the past 5 years, that articles from a journal have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The Eigenfactor score considers which journals have contributed these citations and removes journal self-citations.

Article Influence Score

The average influence of a journal's articles over the first five years after publication. It is calculated by dividing a journal's Eigenfactor Score by the number of articles in the journal.

Immediacy Index

For comparing journals specializing in cutting-edge research, the immediacy index can provide a useful perspective.

The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published.

• The journal Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited.
• The aggregate Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a subject category are cited.

The Immediacy Index is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in a given year by the number of articles published in that year.

5 Year Impact Factor

The 5-year journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the five previous years.

The 5-year Impact Factor is available only in JCR 2007 and subsequent years.

To look up a journal's Impact Factor, you will need to access Journal Citation Reports via Web of Science. To do this:

1. Start at the LRC website and login with your LRC username and password.
2. Under Featured Resources, click the Web of Science icon.
3. Next, from the Web of Science main page, click the Journal Citation Reports tab.
4. Once you are in the JCR, you can opt to search for a specific journal or identify impact factors by subject category.