Cited Publications 1 (ISI Indexed) (6 Apr 2012) This newsletter covers some useful information about cited publications. It starts with an introduction to citation databases and usefulness of cited references. Then, it explains Impact Factor and introduces Thomson Journal Citation Reports (JCR). In this newsletter, you will get familiar with some basic features of the ISI Web of Knowledge. Parts of these notes are based on information provided by Dr. Raja Kumar previously. Citation Databases Citation databases make it possible to search cited references. In other words, they search for references that are listed in the bibliographies of research publications. Using such facility, researchers can follow a particular cited reference, or cited author, forward in time to find other articles that have also cited that author or work. There are some multidisciplinary and disciplinary specific databases which permit citation searching. Here are some of the most popular citation databases: Multidisciplinary: ISI Web of Knowledge (Web of Science :Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index) SciVerse Scopus (By Elsevier) SciVerse ScienceDirect (By Elsevier) Google Scholar Disciplinary Specific (Related to Our Filed): INSPEC (Physics, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Computer and Control Engineering and Information Technology) MathSciNet (Mathematics)
Usefulness of Cited References Cited references may be useful for a number of reasons: Locating current research based on earlier research, patents, reports, etc. Finding how many times and where a publication is being cited. Identifying who is referencing a particular paper. Exploring how a particular research topic is being used to support other research. Analyzing the impact of a publication on other research in the field. Tracking the history of a research idea. Tracking the research of a colleague, or keeping track of your own research. Impact Factor (IF) The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in science and social science journals. The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), now part of Thomson Reuters. This measure is frequently used to assess the relative importance of a journal within its field. Thus, journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones in a certain field. Impact factors are calculated yearly for those journals that are indexed in Thomson Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The annual JCR impact factor is a ratio between citations and recent citable items published. Thus, the impact factor
of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years. This is known as ISI Impact Factor. The Impact Factor (IF) contained in JCR carried out by Thomson Reuters is the only recognized by most academic institutions in the world. There are other agencies who may also claim to calculate IF but they are not recognized globally and the procedure/mathematics involved to generate such IF are either not clearly made or unknown. The impact factor is highly discipline-dependent. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly among disciplines from 1-3 percent in the mathematical and physical sciences to 5-8 percent in the biological sciences. Note that 2008 impact factors are actually published in 2009; they cannot be calculated until all of the 2008 publications have been processed by the indexing agency. The impact factor relates to a specific time period. It is possible to calculate it for any desired period. The Journal Citation Reports (JCR) also includes a 5-year impact factor. Impact Factor for New Journals Since the ISI impact factor is calculated based on the percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication, new journals definitely cannot have IF. However, new journals, which are indexed from their first published issue, will receive an impact factor after two years of indexing.
In this case, the citations to the year prior to Volume 1, and the number of articles published in the year prior to Volume 1 are known zero values. Although, such publications do not have impact factors, they are still considered as ISI indexed publications. Journals that are indexed starting with a volume other than the first volume will not get an impact factor until they have been indexed for three years. Search for ISI Journals and Related Information In order to search for a journal/publication to check whether it is cited by ISI, you can use Thomson Journal Citation Reports (JCR) at the following link: http://admin-apps.webofknowledge.com/jcr/jcr?sid=p1ggfh562ij96f5mn23&locale=en_us JCR provides quantifiable statistical information based on citation data. For instance, JCR data includes: Total Cites Impact Factor 5-Year Impact Factor Journal Self Citation Immediacy Index The total number of articles in the journal published in the JCR year Cited Half-life. In addition, the journal summary list provided by JCR, includes the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), and The Abbreviated Journal Title which is linked to journal information. By clicking on the Abbreviated Journal Title you can get even more information about that specific journal such as Publisher, Subject Category, Journal Rank in Category, Number of Issues per Year, and some more.
Eigenfactor Metrics JCR provides Eigenfactor Metrics as well. Like the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score use citation data to assess and track the influence of a journal in relation to other journals. Eigenfactor Metrics are available only for JCR years 2007 and later. The Eigenfactor Score calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals. References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation. The Article Influence determines the average influence of a journal's articles over the first five years after publication. It is calculated by dividing a journal s Eigenfactor Score by the number of articles in the journal, normalized as a fraction of all articles in all publications. This measure is roughly analogous to the 5-Year Journal Impact Factor in that it is a ratio of a journal s citation influence to the size of the journal s article contribution over a period of five years. The mean Article Influence Score is 1.00. A score greater than 1.00 indicates that each article in the journal has above-average influence. A score less than 1.00 indicates that each article in the journal has belowaverage influence.
ISI Proceedings Recently, all proceedings by IEEE are automatically cited by ISI under 'Citation for Conference Proceedings'. In addition, conference proceedings by Springer or Elsevier are automatically included /cited by ISI. There are others as well that you should check with its database. However, it is important to note that proceedings, and also special editions, special issues in a journal cannot have Impact Factor. Who Has ISI Publications? ISI Web of Knowledge provides a facility to search for authors with ISI publications. This feature is under Web of Science at the following link: http://apps.webofknowledge.com/wos_authorsearch_input.do?sid=p1ggfh562ij96f5mn23& product=wos&search_mode=authorsearch You can simply use this feature and check your publications indexed by ISI. References - ISI Web of Knowledge Thomson Reuters Prepared & Complied By Maryam Feily, Ph.D. Candidate & Research Fellow For NAv6 Journal Club National Advanced IPv6 Centre (NAv6) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) April 2012