Journal metrics such as Impact Factor, acceptance rates and h-indices can help you determine how a journal stacks up against other journals in the field, and they may help you determine where you'll submit your manuscript. Note - these numbers can vary wildly between disciplines, and don't indicate anything about the quality of an individual article.
- Journal Impact Factor: An Impact Factor reflects the average number of citations a journal receives in one year from articles published the previous past two years. It is frequently used as a data point for comparing the relative impact of a journal within its field, though the real value of impact factors is a source of much debate. These numbers are calculated from citation data in Web of Science (also known as Science and Social Science Citation Indexes). If a particular journal is not indexed in Web of Science, an impact factor will not be available and cannot be calculated. Also, keep in mind that Web of Science's coverage of engineering journals is not comprehensive, so metrics gathered from this tool may seem lower than those from Scopus or Google Scholar.
- h5-index: An h-index is the highest number of articles a journal has published that have been cited at least than many times. An h-index of 57 means, a journal has published 57 articles that have been cited at least 57 times. As the number of highly-cited articles rises, so does the h-index. An h-index considers citations over the journal's lifetime (or all the years citations from the journal have been tracked by the tool doing the calculation). An h5-index looks at the most recent 5 years, and is often a better indicator of a journal's current influence.
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Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) Indicators: SJR Indicators, are similar to Impact Factors, but based on citation data from a database called Scopus. A journal's rank of influence may appear to be different using this metric for several reasons. 1) This calculation uses 3 previous years of citation data (rather than 2-years in Impact Factors and 5-years in Google Scholar h5-indices). 2) This calculation considers the relative influence of the journal where an article was cited. 3) The journal coverage is different. Although the SJR Indicator is not as widely used as Impact Factors and h-indices, the Scimago site offers many other data points scholars may find useful when assessing a journal.
