Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of an academic journal is an indicator of the impact of a journal with respect to the quantity of scholarly research published in that journal. The JIF is calculated by dividing the number of citations received in a certain year for articles published in that journal during the two preceding years, by the total number of scholarly research papers published in that journal in those years. The Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is an annual publication released by Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters and ISI) that publishes the JIF for more than 10,000 academic journals.
Several misleading metrics and fake impact factors have appeared which damage the prestige of scholarly journals. For example, Universal Impact Factor (UIF), Global Impact Factor (GIF), and Citefactor Impact Factor. In addition to this, there is misleading and false information about indexing in Web of Science.
Figure 1: Example for fake impact factor (IJASRDs).
Would you like to learn how to make sure that a journal is indexed in Web of Science and has a real Impact Factor?
Follow the below steps, using the Master Journal List by Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters and ISI) which includes all journal titles that are covered in Web of Science.
Visit Master Journal List: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/
Figure 2: Screenshot from Master Journal List (Clarivate Analytics).
You can check whether journals are indexed across all Clarivate Analytics databases by searching the full-journal title or the ISSN numbers. Alternatively, you can search the specific databases individually:
- Science Citation Index Expanded™
- Social Sciences Citation Index®
- Arts & Humanities Citation Index®
- Emerging Sources Citation Index
For each database, you can search to find specific journal by title or ISSN. You can also view a list of all journals included in this database, and you can track journal coverage changes.
Figure 3: Screenshot from Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) (MJL-Clarivate Analytics).
By doing this simple check, (which is free-of-charge), you will easily and accurately determine whether or not your journal is indexed in the Web of Science.
By Mohamad Mostafa, Publishing Editor – Knowledge E
