Summary of responses to query about research impact factor tools and tips

Summary of responses to query about research impact factor tools and tips - from JISC MAIL

Treat with caution – different institutions and subject areas recognise different metrics differently and some don’t recognise them as reliable measure of impact. Advise them about the tools but advise them about possible limitations too. The Sciences and Health Sciences seem to have more reliable data so tend to be able to rely on these more.

ISI suite of products is market leader. Thomson ISI is a key player and the most long-standing founded in 1960.

Web of Knowledge and SCOPUS seem to be the two main competitors for this market. Several institutions are looking at SCOPUS but it is expensive (no price given). SCOPUS enables you to see the number of citations for journal titles. SCOPUS has a better range of citations than ISI for some subjects.
Web of Knowledge is the source of all ISI citations used in other product lines. It allows you to do a citation search or to find an author’s h-index rather than just looking at the impact of a journal. The h-index is an index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output put forward in 2005 by the American physicist, Jorge Hirsch. Use the Author Finder tool in Web of Knowledge for this. The Journal Citation Reports product in Web of Knowledge includes a number of indicators including the Journal Impact Factor. You pay extra on top of your WOK sub to access JCR. JCR is published annually and comes out 6-7 months after the end of the year. In-cites can be used for looking at an institution. http://isiwebofknowledge.com/incites/.

Other tools people mentioned were:
http://www.scimagojr.com/ - developed from rankings in Scopus
Sci-Bytes http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/ - gives small snapshots of the statistics from Journal Citation Reports, e.g. the "Top 10 journals in education", in the latest issue.
Essential Science Indicators
ScienceWatch.com
SciImago - a free website based on the Scopus dataset.
Google scholar plus Publish or Perish software which you can download offers better range of citations for SOME disciplines
Eigenfactor.org – free website
The Washington and Lee University School of Law http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/index.aspx - a useful tool for law researchers.

Some very kind people sent lists of useful reading and further information, including introductions to the topic:
Eugene Garfield "The Agony and the Ecstasy — The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor", 2005 http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jifchicago2005.pdf - good background information and discussion of pros and cons
From DLIST: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1030/ - a useful article with further reading listed
Thomson Reuters’ website - useful information, discussion and links to articles: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/citationimpactcenter/
http://isiwebofknowledge.com/media/pdf/UsingBibliometricsinEval_WP.pdf - introduction to bibliometrics
http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcp/0901/LCP0901.pdf - introduction to bibliometrics
http://www.inria.fr/inria/organigramme/documents/ce_indicateurs_en.pdf - includes the negative aspects
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jacso/savvy-mcb.htm - Prof Peter Jasco, University of Hawaii. He has written extensively on the subject of citation metrics and different info resources that provide these metrics
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdf
PLoS Medicine Editors, & McKenna, H. (2006). Impact factor game. PLoS Medicine, 3(6), e291.

Excellent overview of the current discussions on the use of metrics compiled by Alison Robson
Alison Robson BA PGDip PGCHE
Academic Librarian (Law, Accounting and Finance)