DON’T SPECULATE. VALIDATE.A new standard of journal citation impact.

CiteScore metrics are a new standard to help you measure citation impact for journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals.

They are comprehensive, transparent, current and free metrics for helping to analyze where research is published.

Calculated using data from Scopus®, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, CiteScore metrics help you validate the citability of journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals and help empower you with information you need to make well-informed decisions.

CiteScore metrics are part of an evolving basket of metrics that will continue to evolve and grow with input and guidance from the research community.

A better way to measure citation impact

Researchers, publishers, bibliometricians, librarians, institutional leaders and others in academia have been exploring ways to bring citation metrics into the 21st century by adding serial title-based measurements to an evolving and growing basket of metrics. CiteScore metrics now complement Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) metrics to provide more robust indicators for a serial title’s performance on Scopus.

Comprehensive

CiteScore is essentially the average citations per document that a title receives over a three-year period. A CiteScore 2017 value is available for most active titles on Scopus – peer-reviewed journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals – that started publishing in January 2016 or earlier. CiteScore does not discriminate: if a title can be cited, CiteScore will count it. CiteScore metrics are derived from the Scopus database, which is the largest abstract and indexing database of peer-reviewed literature.

CiteScore citation and document counts include all Scopus serial types:• Peer review journals, including supplements and special issues

• Book series

• Conference proceedings

• Trade journals

Two golden rules for research metrics:

When used correctly, research metrics – together with qualitative input – give a balanced, multi-dimensional view for decision-making:1. Always use both qualitative and quantitative input in your decisions, and;2. Always use more than one research metric from the basket of metrics as the quantitative input.

CiteScore metrics are comprised of eight metrics: • CiteScore.

An annual value that measures the citation impact of a title (i.e., journal, book series, conference proceeding and trade journal; including special issues).

• CiteScore Tracker. A monthly value that allows you to track a title’s progress towards the next annual CiteScore value as a current indication of a title’s performance.

• CiteScore Percentile. Indicates the relative standing of a title in its subject field, and also corrects for the different sizes of subject fields.

• CiteScore Quartiles. Bands of titles that have been grouped together because they occupy a similar position within their subject categories.

• CiteScore Rank. Indicates the absolute standing of a title in its field; for example, 14th out of 63 titles in a given category.

• Citation Count. The sum of citations received in one year by documents published in the 3 preceding years (the numerator of the CiteScore calculation).

• Document Count. The sum of documents published in the serial title in the 3 years preceding to the year the metric is calculated for (the denominator of the CiteScore calculation).

• Percentage Cited. The proportion of the documents considered in the denominator of the CiteScore calculation that have received at least 1 citation in the numerator.

Transparent

CiteScore is transparent with how values are calculated. Through the freely available Source Details screen on Scopus, anyone can click into the numerator (citations) and denominator (documents) and view the underlying data behind the calculation. Simple to replicate, the calculation for CiteScore metrics are straightforward with no secret algorithms or hidden details.

Current

CiteScore Tracker is calculated monthly. It shows how the current year’s CiteScore value is building and provides a timely way to track a title’s progress until the next annual value is published. New titles can receive CiteScore metrics the year after they are first indexed by Scopus.

Free

There is no charge to take advantage of CiteScore metrics, nor do you need a Scopus subscription to dive deeper into the metrics or underlying data for a specific serial title of interest:

• Title-level evaluation functionality on Scopus and access to CiteScore metrics are free

• The Scopus.com Source Details feature is now open for anyone to use, so you can interrogate the metrics and underlying data for a specific serial title of interest

• You can download the complete CiteScore metrics data as an Excel file for free from scopus.com/sources

CiteScore130.47

99th percentile

88.164 SNIP

Top newcomers

1#20122011 2013 2014 2015 2016

General Medicine

Health Sciences

Analytical Chemistry

Sociology and Political Science

Life Sciences

Anatomy

Automotive Engineering ImmunologyConservation

Plant ScienceBioengineering

Microbiology

EndocrinologyGeology

HistologyEmbryology

MedicineDecision Sciences

Physical Sciences

Social Sciences

Highest CiteScore, SNIP & SJR:

Largest Subject Area

31 open access titles ranked #1 in their

subject area

CiteScore 2017 is the first annual CiteScore metric for these titles and they are already in the top 1% for their subject areas.

Title CiteScore 2017

Newly addedScopus titlesthat are in the99th percentile.

Nature Reviews Materials• Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

• Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

• Hepatology

• Biochemistry, medical

25.79

Nature Energy 25.21

Liver Cancer 11.14

Chem 7.23

• Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

• Horticulture

ACS Sensors 5.42

Horticulture Research 4.01

255,196 citations (2017)

84,900 documents (2014-2016)=

of metrics

disciplinestitles

22

cited documents

with100%

7 years

with a CiteScore 2017 and no Journal Impact Factor (2016)

Top movers

Highest citation and document counts

+12,000 titlesHighest metric scores

61.786 SJR

3.0191st

percentile

titles increased theirCiteScore Percentile by 50% or more from 2016-2017

111

active titles and growing23,359

CiteScore more than doubled between 2016- 2017

1,477 titles

CiteScore increased or stayed the same from 2016- 2017

14,092 titles

3301,028

titles

top 10% titles2,942

Health Sciences

LifeSciences

PhysicalSciences

SocialSciences

1000

800

600

400

200

0

Title

s

50

0

150

200

300

250

100

Quartile 4 Quartile 3 Quartile 2 Quartile 1

Top 10%

Over 490 of these titles are very highly ranked in their subject areas.

CiteScore130.47

99th percentile

88.164 SNIP

Top newcomers

1#20122011 2013 2014 2015 2016

General Medicine

Health Sciences

Analytical Chemistry

Sociology and Political Science

Life Sciences

Anatomy

Automotive Engineering ImmunologyConservation

Plant ScienceBioengineering

Microbiology

EndocrinologyGeology

HistologyEmbryology

MedicineDecision Sciences

Physical Sciences

Social Sciences

Highest CiteScore, SNIP & SJR:

Largest Subject Area

31 open access titles ranked #1 in their

subject area

CiteScore 2017 is the first annual CiteScore metric for these titles and they are already in the top 1% for their subject areas.

Title CiteScore 2017

Newly addedScopus titlesthat are in the99th percentile.

Nature Reviews Materials• Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

• Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

• Hepatology

• Biochemistry, medical

25.79

Nature Energy 25.21

Liver Cancer 11.14

Chem 7.23

• Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

• Horticulture

ACS Sensors 5.42

Horticulture Research 4.01

255,196 citations (2017)

84,900 documents (2014-2016)=

of metrics

disciplinestitles

22

cited documents

with100%

7 years

with a CiteScore 2017 and no Journal Impact Factor (2016)

Top movers

Highest citation and document counts

+12,000 titlesHighest metric scores

61.786 SJR

3.0191st

percentile

titles increased theirCiteScore Percentile by 50% or more from 2016-2017

111

active titles and growing23,359

CiteScore more than doubled between 2016- 2017

1,477 titles

CiteScore increased or stayed the same from 2016- 2017

14,092 titles

3301,028

titles

top 10% titles2,942

Health Sciences

LifeSciences

PhysicalSciences

SocialSciences

1000

800

600

400

200

0

Title

s

50

0

150

200

300

250

100

Quartile 4 Quartile 3 Quartile 2 Quartile 1

Top 10%

Over 490 of these titles are very highly ranked in their subject areas.

A new standard

CiteScore metrics calculate the citations from all documents in year one to all documents published in the prior three years for a title. This offers a more robust and accurate indication of a title’s impact.

For example, to calculate a 2017 value, CiteScore counts the citations received in 2017 to documents published in 2014, 2015 or 2016. This number is divided by the number of documents indexed on Scopus published in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

A= 3 years

B= all document types (equivalent to types in A)

The CiteScore advantage

Researchers, librarians, institutional leaders, publishers and others in academia can use CiteScore metrics and the underlying data to gain greater insight into journal citation impact. As part of a multi-dimensional and continually evolving basket of metrics, CiteScore metrics go beyond just journals to include most serial titles, including supplements, special issues and conference proceedings. CiteScore metrics can boost the confidence of the following decision makers:

• Researchers:

– Determine which titles to read

– Decide where to publish your research

– Showcase where your research is published

• Librarians and Information Professionals:

– Decide which serial titles to subscribe to

• Research Performance Managers:

– Analyze your organization’s publication strategy

– Encourage researchers to publish in serial titles that are aligned with institutional strategy

• Tenure and Promotion Committees:

– Evaluate the impact of the outlets that a researcher’s published in

• Publishers and Editors:

– Establish and monitor publication strategies

CiteScore 2017 value = A

B

B

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Citations in 2017A

Measuring citation impact

CiteScore metrics bring academic metrics into the 21st century. They represent a revolutionary approach for two fundamental reasons:

1. �We’ve�refined�the�citation�window.�Rather than using a two- or five-year citation window, CiteScore uses three. Research over the years has found that in slower-moving fields, two years’ worth of data is too short, yet five years is too long to consider in faster-moving fields. The peer-reviewed bibliometric literature shows that three years is the best compromise for a broad-scope database, such as Scopus. It incorporates a representative proportion of citations in all disciplines while also reflecting relatively recent data.

2. CiteScore’s numerator and denominator both include all document types. This not only includes articles and reviews but also letters, notes, editorials, conference papers and others indexed by Scopus. Therefore, the numerator and the denominator used in the CiteScore calculation are consistent. This approach gives a more complete picture of citation impact and makes manipulation of the calculation more difficult.

Desirable characteristic CiteScore CiteScore Tracker

Impact Factor

Metric measures citations per document 3 3 3Replicate strong characteristics

Simple method 3 3 3

Annual snapshot for reporting purposes 3 7 3

Document type consistency (num. and denom.) 3 3 7

Improved methodology

Fair compromise for all fields – 3y citation window 3 3 7

Derivative metric addresses disciplinary differences 3 3 7

Ongoing inclusion of error correction 7 3 7

Available for all serials indexed (not only journals) 3 3 7 ComprehensiveNew titles have the metric next calendar year 3 3 7

CurrentTracking view for verification and decision making 7 3 7

Metric is current – updated monthly 7 3 7

It’s calculated from the same database I use 3 3 7

TransparentMetric and derivative metrics are free 3 3 7

I can use a free widget on my webpage 3 3 7

Journal-level evaluation functionality is free 3 3 7

Underlying database available to verify calculation 3 3 7

Get involved

Research metrics are getting more and more diverse.

Researchers have more opportunities to communicate their outputs, and research metrics are becoming more widely used by evaluators, alongside expert opinion, to help make sense of publication outputs.

Visit�the�Scopus�blog�and�get�involved�to�help�define�the�basket�of�research�metrics.

https://blog.scopus.com/get-involved

Accessing CiteScore metrics is easy

Visit these websites for free access to CiteScore metrics and their underlying data:

• scopus.com – Search and filter features allow you to explore the full range of associated CiteScore metrics for a group of serials such as open access journals, a subject category or a publisher view. To deep-dive into a title, click on the Source Details page for full access to CiteScore metrics.

• Journal homepages on Elsevier.com – Access CiteScore metrics from the nearly 2,500 journals published by Elsevier.

For SciVal institutions: CiteScore metrics are also available through new functionality in the Overview module, making it easy to investigate institutional publication profiles.

SciVal offers quick, easy access to the research performance of 7,500 research institutions and 220 nations worldwide.

For Pure institutions: CiteScore is available as part of a basket of journal metrics, giving users an instant understanding of a journal’s citation impact.

CiteScore will be integrated into the following Elsevier solutions to aid in title-level analysis and evaluation:

• ScienceDirect – provides full-text access to the latest information as well as foundational knowledge in science, technology and health published by Elsevier, our imprints and our society partners.

• Mendeley – is a free reference manager and academic social network for researchers, teams and groups.

About Scopus®

Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: journals, books, conference proceedings and more. Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research to deliver a comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and the arts and humanities.

Scopus serves as the foundation for CiteScore metrics. www.scopus.com

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions and publishes over 2,500 journals and more than 35,000 books. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.

For more information about CiteScore metrics, Source Normalized Impact per Publication (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) – all Powered by Scopus – please visit scopus.com/sources

Copyright ©2018 Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.