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MHIM 609: Concepts of Research Methodology

Journal Impact Factor

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) measures the frequency the average article in a given journal has been cited in a particular year and measures a journal's importance or rank by the number of times its articles are cited. JIF is calculated according to a two-year period and divides the number of times articles were cited by the number of articles which may be cited. Eigenfactor scores measure how likely a journal is to be cited and how frequently its information may be used by researchers. JIF information is based on journal citations from Web of Science Core Collection and available in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database.

The table below lists the top 10 journals in JCR in the medical informatics category:

Journal Title

Total Cites

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Eigenfactor Score

Journal of Medical Internet Research

10,875

4.671

0.02741

JMIR mHealth and uHealth

1,418

4.541

0.00463

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association

8,713

4.270

0.01758

IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics

2,992

3.850

0.00810

Medical Decision Making

4,718

3.012

0.00923

International Journal of Medical Informatics

4,584

2.957

0.00660

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

5,871

2.882

0.00834

Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

2,097

2.879

0.00287

Computer Methods and Programs in Medicine

5,915

2.674

0.00889

Statistical Methods in Medical Research

3,435

2.284

0.00948

For more information about how journal impact factors are calculated, visit Journal Citation Reports: Learn the Basics from Clarivate Analytics.

To find other journals' impact factors, visit JCR (Journal Citation Reports) in the "Databases" tab to the left. For a brief tutorial on how to use JCR, please watch the video below.

Source: University of Illinois Chicago University Library

Research Impact

Research impact can be measured in different ways using different tools. Traditionally, the indicators included the number of times a publication was cited and journal impact. Recent years, altmetrics have been used to measure a researcher's impact, which takes into account not just academic citations (traditional means), but also digital use and sharing of data (non-traditional means). It can include the number of times a paper has been viewed, tweeted, 'liked' on Facebook, covered by the media or blogs, downloaded, cited on Wikipedia or bookmarked online.

Author/Article Impact

  • PlumX for Scopus is a 3rd party web application that runs within the sidebar of Scopus article and abstract pages. It displays all of the social or mainstream media mentions gathered for a particular paper as well as reader counts on popular reference managers (e.g., CiteULike and Mendeley)
  • H index is based on a scholar's most cited works and the number of times these have been referenced in the literature. Tools for calculating your H-index include Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar Citations.
  • iCite is created by the Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) at the National Institute of Health (NIH). It's a web application that provides a panel of bibliometric information for scientific publications within a defined analysis group. More information from the iCite User Guide. 
  • PLoS Article Level Metrics (ALM) is a service provided by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) for all authors of works published in PLoS journals.
  • Research ID: A free product developed by Thomson Reuters. Once registered, a researcher is assigned a unique ID number that associated with their publications. If you have an EndNote Online account or Web of Science account you do not need to register with Research ID site.   
  • Publish or Perish  - From Harzing.com, a well-known resource in scholarly publishing, this software tool calculates numerous research metrics based on Google Scholar data.

Journal Impact

  • Journal Citation Report (JCR) is an authoritative resource for impact factor data from ISI Web of Knowledge. JCR provides impact factors and rankings of journals in the social and life sciences based on millions of citations. It serves as a means to compare different journals in a field of study.
  • Google Scholar Metrics provides an easy way to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research. You can browse the top 10 publications. 

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