Citation Analysis: Other Evaluation Metrics/Tools
Alternative Metrics for Journal evaluation
Besides Journal Impact factor and SCImargo Journal Rank, there are other metrics available to help users evaluate journals. Here is a list of some:
- Beall’s List:List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers collated by Jeffrey Beall, librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver, Colorado. (Currently not available)
- List of Predatory JournalsBased on original Beall's List with updated information
- Elsevier Journal FinderUse Elsevier Journal Finder to find journals published by Elsevier that could be best suited for publishing your scientific article by keying in your abstract. Information include Impact Factor (JCR), acceptance rate and how long the it takes for articles to be accepted.
- Google Scholar MetricsGoogle Scholar Metrics provides ranking of journals in different subject categories based on the h5 index.
- JournalGuideUse JournalGuide to search for journals to publish in by entering the title/abstract of your paper. You can also search for articles to cite in you papers. Data provided includes SNIP (Source Normalised Impact Per Paper) and how long the peer review process takes.
- Microsoft Academic SearchMicrosoft Academic Search is similar to Google Scholar Metrics. Shows data for individual researchers and organisations as well.
- Scientific Journal FinderFounded by a team of scientists and using data from MEDLINE/PubMed to recommend a list of journals most suitable for new/unpublished manuscripts based on the title and abstract of scientific manuscript.
- SciRev- a platform for researchers to share their experience with the scientific review process and select an efficient journal for submitting manuscripts.
Alternative Metrics for measuring impact
Other than looking at the h-index to measure the research output and impact of a particular researcher, there are now new metrics that look at other areas to represent impact, such as number of downloads, social media engagement, etc. Here are of these new alternative metrics:
- Altmetric
- provides article level metrics. Their stated mission is "to track and analyse the online activity around scholarly literature." - Impactstory
"Impactstory is an open-source, web-based tool that helps scientists explore and share the diverse impacts of all their research products—from traditional ones like journal articles, to emerging products like blog posts, datasets, and software" (taken from Impactstory About page). - PlumX
PlumX Metrics gathers metrics across five categories - usage, mentions, captures, social media and citations - "to give a complete picture of research and answers questions about research impact". - Pubish or Perish by Harzing.com
- retrieves and analyzes academic citations from Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. - Snowball Metrics
- a set of metrics for benchmarking institutions
About Predatory Publishers
What are predatory publishers? Why should you beware of them? This LibGuide by Carolyn Unck, Scientific Editor at KAUST provides background information and some tips on how to identify such publishers/journals.
How to ensure that the publisher which you have chosen to publish your research with is reliable? The video below by Think. Check. Submit. shows you the steps.
Besides predatory publishers, you should also be aware of fake impact factor. For details, view this list of Bogus Impact Factor Cites by University of Michigan Library.