Journal ranking – August 2014 update

The journal rankings based on articles published in 2013 are now available. (Update Nov 2014 – The EAJG (ABS) journal quality guide is now not expected until early 2015 – details below)

The best known journal rankings are the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Thomson Reuters. These are not available for free – staff and students from University of Manchester have access through our Web of Science (formerly Web of Knowledge) subscription.

Select the Journal Citation Reports link or select Web of Science and then the Journal Citation Reports tab. Once at the JCR home page select the Journals by Rank tab.

The primary variable calculated by JCR is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). The new interface also offers a journal connection visualization.

Web of Science – JCR 2013 (click to enlarge)

The above screenshot is for Incites Journal Citation Reports – year 2013; category business, finance; and edition SSCI;

For more information – Journal Citation Reports Data Release 2014  (JCR 2013 data)

The SJR SCImago Journal and Country Rank – Journal Ranking, based on Scopus data, now have 2013 as their latest year.

The SJR indicator, developed by SCImago, is not as well know as the JIF factor from the Journal Citation Reports. However the metrics are freely available – they are based on Scopus rather than ISI Web of Science so more business and management journals are covered, and more business and management subject categories.

The screenshot below shows results for the subject area Business, Management and Accounting. There is  a category Marketing in this subject area (see Journal ranking – marketing posted August 2012). The subject category Finance is in the separate subject area Economics, Econometrics and Finance.

SJR journal ranking – subject area Business, Management and Accounting (click to expand)

The CWTS Journal Indicators are also based on Scopus data, and again 2013 is now the latest year available.

Google Scholar Metrics currently covers articles published between 2009 and 2013 (both inclusive) and are based on citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar in June 2014. (details available via the learn more link)

Google Scholar does not appear to make historical metrics available.

There is an example screenshot in the Journal Ranking – August 2013 update post.

The EAJG (ABS) journal quality guide – ABS (the Association of Business Schools) Academic Journal Guide 2015  is now located at www.bizschooljournals.com  [Updated 28 Feb 2015]

The latest 2010 version 4 of the  ABS Journal Quality Guide is available form the www.bizschooljournals.com/ archive.  See also  Journal ranking – August 2013 update

Thanks to the Academic Trends & Innovation blog for the latest JCR released post – a reminder that the Journal Citation Reports (2014 edition) is now available.

Journal ranking – August 2013 update

Update 28 Feb 2015 – The ABS (the Association of Business Schools) Academic Journal Guide 2015  is now located at www.bizschooljournals.com – its objective is to provide a “wide  authoritative guide to journal quality in the broadly defined field of business and management”. The previous guide  “2009 version 3” , then called the ABS Journal Quality Guide, is no longer available from www.bizschooljournals.com archive page. According to a July 2013 press release the new guide was planned to be available late 2014 but then delayed until February 2015. [end Update 28 Feb 2015]

As posted earlier – Journal ranking – 2012 JCR – the ISI Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) Journal Citation Reports for 2012 are now available. From Google Scholar Metrics post on INSEAD’s Academic Trends and Innovation blog. The 2013 version of Google Scholar Metrics was released on July 24, 2013. It covers articles published between 2008 and 2012.

‘Scholar Metrics currently cover articles published between 2008 and 2012, both inclusive. The metrics are based on citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar in July 2013. This also includes citations from articles that are not themselves covered by Scholar Metrics.’

Google Scholar Metrics for Strategic Management (click to enlarge)

The SJR SCImago Journal and Country Rank – Journal Ranking, based on Scopus data, still have 2011 as their latest year. The CWTS Journal Indicators are also based on Scopus data, and again 2011 is the latest available.

CWTS Journal Indicators provides free access to bibliometric indicators on scientific journals. The indicators have been calculated by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) based on the Scopus bibliographic database produced by Elsevier. Indicators are available for over 20,000 journals indexed in the Scopus database.

www.journalindicators.com [Accessed 13 August 2013] Related information

• Journal ranking – 2012 JCR (posted June 2013) – mentioned above
• Journal ranking – marketing (posted August 2012)

Journal ranking – 2012 JCR

The ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports (2012 JCR Social Science Edition) is now available.

To access –

• goto  ISI Web of Knowledge 
• select Additional Resources and then Journal Citation Reports.

The screenshot below is of the 2102 JCR Social Science Edition for subject categories: Business AND Business, Finance AND Management sorted by Impact Factor.

JCR 2012 journal rankings (click to expand)

The top three journals by impact factor are:

1. Academy of Management Review
2. Journal of Management
3. Academy of Management Journal

Thanks to the Academic Trends and Innovation (INSEAD) blog for their post – Top 10 journals by impact factor – Latest JCR is released.
Recently “journal ranking 2012” has been a popular search term on Business Research Plus so many people will be glad that these are now available.

Journal Ranking – marketing

The journal ranking data for 2012 is the latest available. Like previous years, the Journal Citation Reports (2012), including Impact Factors 2012, became available around the end of June 2013 – see journal rankings –  2012 JCR.

Using Marketing as an example:

ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide (last updated Nov 2010) has a Marketing section with five journals identified as “grade four” (the highest)

• Journal of Marketing (ISSN 0022-2429)
• Journal of Marketing Research (ISSN 0022-2437)
• Journal of Consumer Research (ISSN 0093-5301)
• Marketing Science (ISSN 0732-2399)
• Journal of Retailing (ISSN 0022-4359)

SJR SCImago Journal and Country Rank – Journal Ranking:
Area Business, Management and Accounting, Category Marketing, Country All, Order by H Index, Year 2011 (based in Scopus data) gives the following first five

• Journal of Marketing (ISSN – 00222429)
• Administrative Science Quarterly (ISSN – 00018392)
• Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (ISSN – 00920703)
• Journal of Marketing Research (ISSN – 00222437)
• Journal of Consumer Research (ISSN – 00935301)

For more on the SJR and SNIP journal metrics goto http://www.journalmetrics.com/

The ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports (2011 JCR Social Science Edition) do not have marketing as a separate category, but Journal of Marketing, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing and Journal of Marketing Research are all in the top 20 for subject category Business ranked by Impact Factor.

Also from Journal Citation Reports (2011) Top 10 journals in Management, Finance and Economics from INSEAD blog.

Eigenfactor claims to rank journals in a similar way to Google ranking websites.

• Eigenfactor ranking for ISI category Business – there is no marketing category but several marketing journals are at the top of this category.

See also previous post – Journal Rankings https://bizlib247.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/journal-rankings/ (Oct 2010)

Research awareness and dissemination

Looking to find related research?
The other side of this coin is to consider how you could disseminate your research findings.

Academic journals

Getting your research published in a academic journals is fundamental to academic research. Peer review provides a guarantee of the quality of your work. In general, the higher the journal ranking the better: this will improve the chance of others finding and citing your work, and help you get an academic job/promotion.

In looking at related research you can use journal rankings as one approach to filtering a large set of “might be interesting related” papers. You can also use cited reference searching to find out other papers that have sighted your key papers.

• Keeping up to date – journal citation and current awareness services web page

 Institutional and subject repositories

Manchester eScholar is the University of Manchester’s institutional repository and a primary dissemination route for all University of Manchester research. You can search Manchester eScholar directly or the University research directory, which is based on the data in eScholar.

SSRN (Social Sciences Research Network) is an eLibrary with over 300,000 full-text papers. This includes working papers that later get further developed into academic journal papers.

If there is a research group, or an individual, whose research is closely related to yours then try to search their institutional repository and/or working papers.

• Finding working papers – Judge Business School Library blog post (26 Mar 2012).

Social media: blogs, twitter, …

There is growing interest in the use of social media in the dissemination of research.

• Your favourite academic tweeters (including business and management list) LSE Impact of Social Sciences (2 Sept 2011)
• Twitter for academic research – Judge Business School Library – New Media for Researchers (10 Feb 2012)
• Examples of academic and research blogs –  Judge Business School Library – New Media for Researchers (18 May 2011)
• Academic bloggers in business and economics – Business & Economics Information Solutions (Warwick Library) (15 Dec 2011)

You should certainly consider social media as a medium for research dissemination. Browse what others have done and decide what is right for you. One common message is to think of social media as enabling a conversation about research ideas and findings.

Surprisingly (to me at least) blogs do not seem to be an efficient way of finding out about current research in business and management. There are some interesting blogs, (e.g. Leaders We Deserve and Whitehall Watch from MBS academics) but these can be hard to find and often focus on commenting on current events from an academic perspective rather than on research.  [There are of course also several interesting blogs from business school libraries.]

Perhaps social media is all about building a network of contacts – people who might lead you to interesting idea you would otherwise overlook. It is not a replacement for the traditional techniques for finding related research but a complementary technique.

Which business and management journal database is best?

The following graphic from JISC-ADAT (Academic Database Assesment Tool) illustrates why there is no definitive answer to questions like:

• Is ABI Inform (Proquest) or Business Source Premier (EBSCO) better?

The ADAT screenshot below shows the results of comparing:

• ABI Inform (Proquest) – over 3000 business and management publications – many in full-text
• Business Source Premier (EBSCO) – over 6000 business publications – many in full-text
• Scopus – over 18,000 top journals (all subjects) bibliographic information only

Journal database comparison from JISC ADAT – Click on image and then select ABI/INFORM, Business Source Premier and Scopus to re-create

Comparing ABI Inform and Business Source Premier: While there is an overlap between these two, searching just one of these databases will ignore a large number of publications/titles that is available in the other.

Comparing ABI Inform, Business Source Premier and Scopus: Most top academic journals are covered by Scopus, but these are just part of what is available through ABI Inform and Business Source Premier. Even considering just the publications/titles covered by Scopus, only about half of the titles are covered by both ABI Inform and Business Source Premier.

It is best to explore different journal databases – you will probably find what is best depends on the type of results you are seeking.

Getting Published – advice from Emerald

Simon Linacre and Ruth Bailey from Emerald recently visited MBS for a presentation/workshop on getting published (and understanding journal rankings).

The first part described how articles are handled from a publisher’s perspective and offered several important tips for getting published.

• Consider your reader – what will make your paper interesting, clear, relevant and memorable for them
• Consider your potential reader – most people only see the title (and abstract) of your paper through a search engine – Will your target readers want to find out more?
• Consider your editor and publisher – follow the author guidelines!

The second part discussed where to publish and specifically the influence of journal rankings.

• In the UK the forthcoming REF research assessment will use either ISI (Thomson Journal Citation Reports) or Scopus (Elsevier).
• ISI (available through Web of Knowledge) covers 12,000 journals (67% science, 21% social science, 12% humanities)
  Scopus covers 18,000 (40% science, 30% social science, 30% humanities)
• Some countries only consider ISI journals, Australia is compiling its own index, UK has the ABS (Association of Business Schools) ranking list, while in the US Scopus and ISI have limited impact.
• There is growing use of Google scholar as a source of publication impact data but it will be some time before this is an influence at the national level.

Simon’s advice was to be aware that universities are very interested where their staff and students publish as it influences their ranking, but remember that it is your career (you may move somewhere with a different ranking).

Among the discussions, the most discussed topic was the influence of open access publishing and institutional repositories. This is going to have an influence over the next few years. Emerald like most publishers is watching how things develop.

Journal Rankings

Journal rankings are often used to identify the top research journals in a field.

Journal ranking is not perfect and there is significant research into its effectiveness. For example, the Journal Citation Report (JCR) rankings are strict in terms of the journals covered (with natural and life sciences better covered than social sciences) so journal focussed on new emerging areas do not score well.

Brief demo video http://screencast.com/t/gHdnrEvcwH accessing JCR rankings through Web of Knowledge (aka Web of Science)