An alternative to the database Web of Science is Scopus (owned by the publisher Elsevier) which is similar in its structure. It describes the publications it indexes with structured metadata, such as keywords, journal categories, publication types etc. It is also multidisciplinary, has a qualitative evaluation of the sources it indexes in the database, includes citation between publications in the database and produces a number of journal indicators. One of the main differences is that Scopus indexes more journals (approximately 22,000) compared to Web of Science (approximately 12,000).
Although the journal indicators provided by Scopus are not used as often as the more established one by Web of Science, the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), you can use them as complementary tools when selecting journals. One obvious reason is that Scopus covers journals that are not indexed in Web of Science. Just remember that if you are using those indicators you can only compare journals indexed in Scopus.
Three databases can be used if you want to get indicators for journals indexed in Scopus:
In Scopus - Sources you can search for journals in the 27 general thematic subject fields or limit your selection further based on the 313 specific subject categories. The most important indicator of the database is the CiteScore:
- CiteScore
CiteScore counts citations in Scopus for the latest year to documents published in the database during four. The number of citations is then divided with the number of documents published in the database during those four years:
Such a 4-year publication window is said to represent all subject areas best. The publication types that are included in the calculation of CiteScore are peer reviewed articles (research articles, review articles), conference papers from proceedings, book chapters, and data papers. Non-peer review article types like editorials, news items, letters, and notes are not included in the calculation of the CiteScore.
Scopus training video: Overview of journal metrics tutorial [3:49]
In Scopus - Sources, you search for a journal you are interested to compare with other journals. On the Source details of the journal, you click on the link Compare Sources.
In Compare Sources you can compare up to 10 different journals via a graph or a table based on different indicators.
The indicators included are:
- CiteScore
CiteScore counts citations in Scopus for the latest year (the current year is 2016) to documents published in the database the three earlier years, i.e. 2013, 2014, 2015. The number of citations is then divided with the number of documents published in the database during those three years, i.e. 2013, 2014, 2015.
- SJR (Scimago Journal Rank)
SJR is defined as the average number of weighted citations from publications in Scopus during a given year to a journal's articles published the three previous years. Citations that are highly cited means that they are coming from journals which themselves are highly cited and vice versa. Next to the SJR value in the list, it is also stated in which quartile the journal is. If the SJR values are very close to each other this can be an easier way to judge the journals, that is, if they are among the top 25 % (expressed as Q1) or at the bottom 25 % (Q4) of all journals in that field.
- SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper)
SNIP measures the average citation score for articles in a journal. Unlike, for example, the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), SNIP corrects for differences in citation practices between different disciplines. This means that SNIP can be used to compare journals within different subject areas, something which is not suitable with other indicators like Journal Impact Factor (JIF).
- Citations
This is not an actual indicator but just shows the number of citations that each journal has received. You can also indicate in a box if you want to exclude self-citations ('exclude source self-citations') which means that you exclude the citations from a journal that cites itself.
- Documents
This is also not an actual indicator but just shows the number of articles published in each journal.
- % Not cited
This shows in per cent the share of articles that haven't been cited at all. You can also indicate in a box if you want to exclude self-citations ('exclude source self-citations') which means that you exclude the citations from a journal that cites itself.
- % Reviews
This shows in per cent the share of review articles for each journal. Journals that publish a greater amount of review articles tend to receive higher journal indicator values as they generally receive more citations than other types of articles.
Scopus Tutorial: How to compare sources tutorial [2:33]
SJR is a free resource which is developed by a Spaning research group with the name of SCImago. They have developed the journal indicator SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) which is based on the contents of Scopus. The database has three entries of which one is Journal Ranks and in that one, you can get lists of journals indexed in Scopus within different subject categories. You can order them in descending order based on a chosen indicator. Some of the most important indicators in the database are:
- SJR (Scimago Journal Rank)
SJR is defined as the average number of weighted citations from publications in Scopus during a given year to a journal's articles published the three previous years. Citations that are highly cited means that they are coming from journals which themselves are highly cited and vice versa. Next to the SJR value in the list, it is also stated in which quartile the journal is. If the SJR values are very close to each other this can be an easier way to judge the journals, that is, if they are among the top 25 % (expressed as Q1) or at the bottom 25 % (Q4) of all journals in that field.
- H Index
A journal with, for example, an H index of 100 has published 100 articles which each has received at least 100 citations. The H index can thus be said to reflect both the number of articles and the number of citations per article. You should only compare the H index of journals within the same field. The H index was created as a simple indicator to measure researcher within the same research area.
Searching the SCImago Journal Ranking Database [4:20]
Scopus training video: Overview of journal metrics tutorial [3:49]