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Evaluate Journals & Publish Your Research

This guide briefly introduces faculty to some popular journal metrics, and related resources to help faculty evaluate journals in their discipline of research, avoid "predatory journals", and publish their research in high impact journals.

Journal metrics
Journal metrics are often used to identify key journals in a research field.  This identification can be useful when faculty consider which journals to submit their manuscripts to for publication.

The Impact Factor is the most familiar metric in academia. Available in Journal Citation Reports and other citation analysis tools, impact factors serve as indicators of the impact, or influence of a journal.  Even though CSI no longer subscribes to JCR, CABELLS, a newly designed resource subscribed by CSI, provides impact factor. Though controversial, Impact Factors, which rank journals within a discipline, are extensively used in the sciences. 

The producers of JCR caution users not to depend solely on citation data in journal evaluations. "Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review. Careful attention should be paid to the many conditions that can influence citation rates..."  Informed and careful use of impact data, and a good understanding of the limitations of the various metrics is essential. check out the Resources Page here.