Faculty Development Guide: Journal Rankings

Journal Rankings help determine the impact and prestige a journal has within its field. Also, rankings allegedly establish a scholar's standing and authority within a field and contribute to tenure promotions.

Probably the best known journal ranking is the Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI) Journal Impact Factor. Due to its cost, the JKM Library does not subscribe to this resource. However, there are many other websites that can help determine a journal's ranking, which are included here.

A predatory publisher calls for submissions, charges author fees, has a phony editorial board, and offers no editorial support. It also asks academics to serve on editorial boards and then refuses their resignation or simply uses their name and credentials without permission.

Beall's List provides the names of predatory publisher journals. Review the Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers before submitting to a journal.

eigenFACTOR.org
This is a ranking system that uses data from Thomson Reuter's Journal Citation Reports but uses it somewhat differently. For more information, see here.

Journal Metrics
Includes two types of rankings: 1. SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) Score and 2. SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper).

SCImago
SJR Score plus additional information that is used to calculate this score.

CWTS Journal Indicators
SNIP Score plus additional information that is used to calculate this score.

Journal Ranking
You must use the exact journal name to search for a journal. Otherwise, you can use the Common Ranking option to search by broad topic areas.

Science Gateway
Contains a list of the highest ranking journals in various subject areas, according to Thomson Reuter's Journal Citation Reports.

Harzing.com
Contains a variety of resources about publication in business and management, including a Journal Quality List.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a "Cited by #" link under the articles in its results list. Please keep in mind that Google includes more than just articles in the cited by field, e.g. PowerPoint slides and Word documents. Google also offers Google Scholar Citationswhich allows authors to track their citations over time. More information on this service is available here.

Ulrich's Periodical Directory
A great resource for determining whether or not a journal is peer-reviewed. Available in print in the library.

Professional associations may also provide information on the rankings of relevant journals, so check out their websites for this information.