Journal Citation Reports
Journal Citation Reports offers a systematic, objective means to critically
evaluate the world's leading journals. It is available in the following two versions:

The Science Edition covers over 5,900 leading journals

The Social Science Edition covers more than 1,700 leading journals
JCR includes journals from 3,300 publishers, approximately 200 disciplines, and
60 countries.
Citation data is unique because only Thomson Scientific includes cited
references for every article it indexes. By compiling these cited references which
are supplied by the publishing authors themselves, JCR helps to measure
research influence and impact at the journal level, and shows the relationship
between citing and cited journals.
Journal Citation Reports
User Guide
Accessing Journal Citation Reports
Connect to ISI Web of Knowledge at http://wok.mimas.ac.uk and click the
Connect button. You may be prompted to enter a username and password, (e.g.
Athens or local network) though some institutions have requested IP address
authentication.
MIMAS Service
Home page
Helpdesk: wok@mimas.ac.uk
Helpline: 0161 275 6109
http://wok.mimas.ac.uk
To login click on
the hyperlinked
title or the drop
down box
Select ISI Journal Citation Reports from the list of resources on this screen.
HELP
The Help button will present context sensitive Help screens at all times. An index and links to
these screens are available via the Help Contents button found on all Help pages.
New Search
To start a new JCR search simply click on the Welcome button to return to the initial JCR
search option screen.
Log Out
When you have finished your session please click on the red LOG OUT button and make the
session available to another user.
Subject Category
Selection
Country Selection
Publisher Selection
Category
Data
Journal
Data
JCR Homepage
View All Journals
Category
Summary
List
Journal
Summary
List
Category
Information
(Full Record)
Journal
Information
(Full Record)
Cited Journal
Citing Journal
Trend Graph
Scope Note
Journal Search
Marked Journal
List
Format for Printing
Save to File
FUNCTIONALITY FLOW
A functionality flow graph for JCR.
JOURNAL CITATION SEARCH
a) Select one or more categories from the list
Every journal in Journal Citation Reports has been assigned to one or more
subject categories. Viewing JCR data by category allows you to compare citation
data for journals that deal with the same subject.
To select a subject category, click the name of the category.
To select more than one category, use Ctrl-click (Windows®) or Command-click
(Macintosh®). If you select more than one category, and you elect to view journal
data, you will create one summary list that has all of the journals from all of the
selected categories. The journals will be sorted by the sort option you select.
b) Select a view
Journal Data. This option will display a Journal Summary List of journals from
the selected categories in a table. The journals will be sorted by whatever sort
option you select from the drop-down list.
On the first screen you reach you will select the JCR edition you wish to search
and the year. Select what type of search you want to run.
There are 3 options, each of which are described below and broken down
separately:
1. View a group of journals by: Subject Category, Publisher or
Country/Territory. The default option is Subject Category.
2. Search for a specific journal.
3. View all journals - View all journals in the JCR edition and year you selected.
1) View a group of journals by subject category
The next screen you reach is the Subject Category Selection screen. Select to
view Journal data or aggregate Category data.
The results displayed in the Journal Summary List. To view the full record for
the journal simply click on the hyperlink journal title. Please see the Journal
Information section for the information displayed.
Category Data. This option will display a Subject Category Summary List The
subject categories will be sorted by whatever sort option you select from the
drop-down list.
on the Journal Title Changes button to see if the journal title you are searching
on has been altered.)
Journal Abbreviation:
Enter the entire abbreviation or partial abbreviation truncated with a wildcard
(e.g. J Cell Biology or J Cell*), and click on the Search button.
Title Word:
Enter a single word or a partial word truncated with a wildcard (eg. Cell or Cell*),
and click on the Search button.
ISSN: (International Standards Serials Number)
Enter the entire ISSN in the format 1234-5678 or 12345678, and click on the
search button. Wildcards cannot be used in this search.
3) View all journals
To view the subject category page, which provides essential JCR data about a
subject category, simply click the hyperlink category. Please note a Journal may
be covered in more than one category. Please see the Journal Category
Information section for the information displayed.
2) Searching for a specific journal
This option allows you to search for a journal by full journal title, journal
abbreviation, title word, or ISSN.
Simply click on View all journals then click on search this will produce a list of
all of the journals for the year you selected. You can then sort your results list by
Journal Title, Total Cites, Impact Factor, Immediacy Index, Current Articles,
and Cited Half-Life.
Marking and extracting records
Full Journal Title:
Enter the entire journal title or the beginning of a title truncated with a wildcard
(e.g. Journal of Cell Biology or Journal of Cell*) in the box opposite, and click on
the Search button. (There is a hyperlinked list of journal titles to assist with your
search, simply click on the link View list of full journal titles. You may also click
To extract records from the database you must add them to the Marked List.
1. From the Journal Summary List you can mark titles of interest by clicking
the radio boxes to the left of the record you wish to view.
2. Click on Update Marked List.
3. The Marked List will keep up to a maximum of 500 journal records.
4. The Marked List button appears on all pages after journals have been
marked and can be used to display the marked list.
Citing Half-Life: The citing half-life is the number of publication years from the
current year that account for 50% of the current citations published by a journal
in its article references. This figure helps you evaluate the age of the majority of
articles referenced by a journal.
Source Data: This shows the number of research and review articles published
in the current year, the total number of references contained in those articles,
and the average number of references per article.
Cited Journal Data button: This button lists those journals, with data, that cited
the source journal in the year chosen.
Citing Journal Data button: The button provides data about citations in the
source journal.
Impact Factor Trend button: The button links to a five-year Impact Factor Trend
Graph.
To print the Marked Journal List, click on the Format to Print button. Then
select File on your browser and then use your browser's Print button.
To save your Marked Journal list to file, click on Save to File and then choose a
filename and drive destination (A:/ for diskette, C:/ for the hard disk)
Use the Clear Marked List button to clear your records.
Use the Return to List button to return to the Journal Summary list page from
the Marked Journal List page.
Additional features include:

Graphical displays of cited journal data show the distribution by cited
year of citations to articles published in a journal.

The Source Data table, items includes 'other' to account for non-scholarly
items such as news, commentaries, and editorial material which makes it
possible to understand more accurately the size and content of a
publication.

Related journals have cited and citing relationships - users can see which
journals share citations, and are most related to the journal they are
investigating.
JOURNAL CATEGORY INFORMATION
JOURNAL INFORMATION
Total Cites: (Citation Count) gives the total number of times a journal has been
cited by all journals included in the database within the current product year.
Impact factor: This provides a way to evaluate or compare a journal's relative
importance to others in the same field. This is done by measuring the frequency
with which the average article in a journal has been cited within a particular year.
Immediacy Index: This measures how quickly the average article in a journal is
cited, or how often articles published in a journal are cited within the same year.
It is useful for comparing journals specialising in cutting-edge research.
Article Counts: This measures the number of articles published in a journal in a
particular year (original research and review articles only)
Cited Half-Life: The cited half-life is the number of publication years from the
current year, which account for 50% of current citations received. This option
benchmarks the age of cited articles. It is a useful in collection management and
archiving decisions by showing the age of the majority of cited articles published
in a journal.
Much of the same statistical information available for individual journals is
available for subject categories, based on combined data within each category
from 2003 forward. This provides a view of coverage, citation behaviour and
relationships across an entire subject.
Citation statistics for each category as a whole; statistical data includes:

total cites

median impact factor

aggregate impact factor

aggregate immediacy index

aggregate cited half-life

number of journals in category

number of articles in category
Related journals at the category level

Find journals on closely associated topics, based on citing and cited
references to any journals in the category.
Links to category scope notes

Explanations for each category define what areas it covers.
WoK_JCR101
August 2005