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Journals vary in the impact they have on the research community. Once you know a journal’s impact, you can rank it against the impact of other journals in the field.

Check the relative impact of journals within your field so you can:

• identify where to submit articles for publication
• decide which publications to highlight in funding applications and promotion rounds.

Finding a journal’s impact and rank

You can find a journal’s impact and rank by using:

• Scopus and SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
• other ranking tools that supplement Scopus and SJR
• other ways of assessing a journal’s impact.

Journal impact measures are controversial. Using quantitative measures of selected journals may not measure quality. They’re not an indication of the impact of an individual article or author, and measures tend to be higher for journals that include a lot of review articles.

They’re also variable in their coverage and methodology. It’s a good idea to use several impact and ranking tools, particularly those recommended by your college or research and enterprise for specific purposes.

It’s best to use impact measures for comparisons of journals within the same subject area. Only a few such as the SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) factor disciplinary differences into the metric.

Scopus and SJR

Scopus and SJR score and rank journals that are indexed in Scopus based on citation data. They score journals on a number of measures.

Impact measures

CiteScore

The CiteScore measures average citations received per document published in the journal. It is useful for:

• comparing journals within the same field
• ranking them in subject categories
• indicating the percentile they fall into.

SJR

The SJR measures citations weighted by prestige. It is useful for comparing journals within the same field, and forms the basis of the subject category ranking. Q1 journals are cited more often and by more prestigious journals than those in the other quartiles.

SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)

The SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures citations weighted by the subject field. It is useful for comparing journals not just within the same field but also across disciplines.

A SNIP of 1.0 means that a journal’s articles are cited at the average rate for all journals in the same subject area; anything over 1.0 indicates more citations than average in the field while a SNIP of less than 1.0 is below the average. A SNIP of more than 1.5 generally indicates a very well-cited journal.

Using Scopus

To view rankings of journals by subject categories:

1. Go to .
2. Select Subject Area from the menu at the top left (below the Sources heading).
3. Click on Enter Subject Area and select the appropriate subject area and category, using the drop-down menus.
4. The results will be ordered by CiteScore by default.

To view the ranking of a specific journal:

1. Go to .
2. Select Title from the menu at the top left (below the Sources heading).
3. Enter the journal title.
4. In the results list, click on the journal title’s link – this will lead to a wide range of data about that journal.

Using SJR

To view rankings of journals by subject categories:

1. Connect to .
2. Click on Journal Rankings at the top of the page.
3. Select the appropriate subject area and category, using the drop-down menus.

The results will be ordered by SJR by default.

To view the ranking of a specific journal:

1. Enter the journal title in the search box.
2. Click on the search icon.
3. In the results list, click on the title’s link – this will lead to a wide range of data about that journal.

Other ranking tools

Once you have checked Scopus or SJR, you can also use other ways to rank a journal and assess its impact.

Start with .

This ranks the top 100 publications in several languages and the top 20 in specific research areas, based on their five-year .

Then try the following tools.

ABDC (Australian Business Dean’s Council) Journal Quality List

This categorises business journals into four categories of quality: A*, A, B and C.

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Eigenfactor

This scores journals indexed in Web of Science, using a five-year citation window weighted towards highly ranked journals.

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ERIH PLUS (European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences)

This lists humanities and social sciences journals that must meet minimum requirements to be included.

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Financial Time (FT) 50

The 50 business and economics academic and practitioner journals used in the FT Research Rank, part of their ranking of MBA and Executive MBA programmes.

Harzing Journal Quality List

This collates the rankings of predominantly business journals from a variety of sources.

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ShanghaiRanking Academic Excellence Survey: Top Journals

The top 1 to 6 journals in a discipline as identified by academics from the global top 100 universities

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Other ways to assess a journal’s impact

Although some journals are not covered by the major tools, this does not necessarily indicate lack of quality. You can also assess a journal’s impact by answering the following questions.

• Is the journal associated with a major research institution or professional body?
• Are editorial board members significant figures within the research community?
• Are the standards for manuscript acceptance high?
• Is the refereeing system robust?
• Are articles in the journal cited frequently or by well-regarded journals?
• Is the journal covered by major article databases in the field?