What is a good impact factor?
What is an impact factor?
An impact factor measures the average number of a journal's citations in a two-year period. Ultimately, this measure calculates the rank of the journal in question. The more citations a journal has, the higher ranked it is. With higher ranking comes more popularity, and most importantly, credibility.
How is an impact factor calculated?
The calculation of the impact factor of a journal is quite easy. The number of citations of a journal is divided by the number of citable articles (from the same journal) from a two-year period.
X= the number of times articles published in 2018 and 2019 were cited by indexed journals during 2020
Y= the total number of published (citable) articles in 2018 and 2019
X/Y= 2020 impact factor of a journal
How to find the impact factor of a journal?
Usually, the impact factor of a journal is measured by different entities. You can find a journal's impact factor by referring to the Journal Citations Report (JCR), Scopus, or Resurchify. You only need to type in the title, publisher’s name, ISSN, or search by subject category.
What is a good impact factor?
It’s worth highlighting that the impact factor is used to compare journals from the same fields. A history journal cannot be compared to a science journal. Therefore, there is no set impact factor number considered to be ideal since each field has a different measurement. In general, an impact factor of 10 or higher is considered remarkable, while 3 is good, and the average score is less than 1.
The very prestigious journal Nature had an impact factor of 69.504 in the year 2021.
➡️ Learn more: What is a good h-index?
Frequently Asked Questions about impact factors
🍉 What is a journal impact factor?
An impact factor measures the average number of a journal's citations, in a two-year period. Ultimately, this measure calculates the rank of the journal in question.
🍈 How is a journal impact factor calculated?
The number of citations of a journal is divided by the number of citable articles (from the same journal) from a two year period.
X= the number of cited articles from 2018 and 2019 in 2020
Y= the number of published articles in 2018 and 2019
X/Y= 2020 impact factor of a journal
🍊 Where can I find a journal's impact factor?
You can find a journal's impact factor by referring to the Journal Citations Report (JCR) or Scopus.
🍋 What is an average 'good' impact factor?
In general, an impact factor of 10 or higher is considered remarkable, while 3 is good, and the average score is less than 1.
🍍 Who invented the impact factor?
Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), invented the measurement known as impact factor. You can read more about this in Origins of the journal impact factor.
