Beyond Impact, Latest Journal Citation Reports Certify Trust

For nearly half a century, the Journal Citation Reports, or JCR, have been “must reading” in universities around the world. Dr. Nandita Quaderi, a senior vice president and the editor in chief for Web of Science at Clarivate, shares the latest developments in the JCR’s ongoing evolution.

Impact factor is a global standard for measuring the influence and importance of scholarly journals. Published by Clarivate, this calculation is critical for authors when considering where to publish research as well as for librarians when deciding which publications to hold in collections. For nearly half a century, the Journal Citation Reports, or JCR, have been “must reading” in universities around the world.

The latest revisions to the JCR for 2024 respond to important community requests, according to Dr. Nandita Quaderi, a senior vice president and the editor in chief for Web of Science at Clarivate. Dr. Quaderi has overall responsibility for editorial strategy, selection of Web of Science content, and inclusion in Journal Citation Reports.

“We are making two changes to JIF category rankings in this year’s JCR. Both are driven by what we see in the data and changes in the publishing landscape, and the requests we get from our users and the research community at large,” she explains.

Previously, the JCR provided separate rankings for the nine subject areas that are indexed in multiple editions. Psychiatry, for example, is indexed both in SCIE, the science index, and in SSCI, the social science index, and the JCR provided separate psychiatry rankings for these two indices.

“What we’re changing this year is that we’ll no longer have these separate category rankings, and instead, we’ll have a single ranking for each of our 230-odd science and social science categories,” Dr. Quaderi tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

A second change introduced for 2024 is the addition of ESCI journals to category rankings. The Emerging Sources Citation Index brings to light new research in emerging scientific fields as well as new journal content of regional importance.

“If you take psychiatry as an example again, what we will do is display a single psychiatry ranking that includes journals from the science index, the social science index, and from ESCI. Moving to this single category ranking will provide a much simpler and a much more complete category view for our customers,” she says.