How to Find Impact Factor of a Journal

What is an impact factor ?

The impact factor is basically a frequency or average number of citations an academic journal gets by its published documents like research articles, papers, review papers, conference proceedings etc. in a certain period of time. It only represents the average number of citations of the articles or papers published in a journal that year.  It’s a measurement of a journal's credibility and reliability. It is calculated on the basis of the citations a journal gets in the last two years, meaning if a journal wanted to calculate its impact factor for the year 2023 then they have to consider the data (citation and publication) from the year 2021 and 2022.

Calculation of impact factor –

The calculation of impact factor varies from site to site. But the most common base of the method which is used by almost every citation site to calculate impact factor is, no of citation of the published papers in the year which was taken for calculation; divided by the no of publications in the year same as cited year.

For example, calculation of impact factor is based on the average number of citations received by the journal for its published documents in a certain period (1 year, 2 year or 4 year) divided by the number of published documents in the same period.

If a journal's impact factor is measured on the basis of a two year period then the calculation would consist of last year and the recent year data in which IF is calculated. calculating IF for year 2010 one needs to consider data from 2008 and 2009.

how it's actually done –

total citation received for published documents in the year 2009 - 60

total citation received for published documents in the year 2008 - 80

total published documents in the year 2009 - 30

total published document in the year 2008 - 40

IF Score = (c1 +c2) / (P1+P2)

 Citation in previous year = c1

citation in current year = c2

 published documents in previous year = P1

 published documents in current year = P2

            = 80 + 60 / 40 + 30

            = 2

The average impact factor score of the journal is 2. which means this journal's documents are cited two times. In other words its average no of citations in that period is two times.

How to find impact factor of a journal

 a journals impact factor resembles credibility, reliability and worthiness of the journals. It basically helps scholars, researchers, academicians and other individuals who are looking for journals for documents like research papers, articles, review papers and conferences for references or publishing their own documents.

The above information will help individuals in finding the impact factor of a journal so that they can make further decisions related to their research. One can freely look for other platforms as well for getting information suited for them.