Understanding and using journal metrics

Journal metrics can be a useful tool for readers, as well as for authors who are deciding where to submit their next manuscript for publication. However, any one metric only tells a part of the story of a journal’s quality and impact. Each metric has its limitations which means that it should never be considered in isolation, and metrics should be used to support and not replace qualitative review.

We strongly recommend that you always use a number of metrics, alongside other qualitative factors such as a journal’s aims & scope, its readership, and a review of past content published in the journal. In addition, a single article should always be assessed on its own merits and never based on the metrics of the journal it was published in.

Journal metrics in brief

UUsage and acceptance rate data above are for the last full calendar year and are updated annually in February. Speed data is updated every six months, based on the prior six months. Speed data is only available where a journal has made more than 10 decisions of that type in the time period. Speed metrics are averages; some manuscripts will take longer than this. Citation metrics are updated annually mid-year. Please note that some journals do not display all of the following metrics

• Usage: the total number of times articles in the journal were viewed by users of Journal Notification in the previous calendar year, rounded to the nearest thousand.

Speed/acceptance

• From submission to first decision: the average (median) number of days for a manuscript submitted to the journal to receive a first decision. Based on manuscripts receiving a first decision in the last six months. This includes manuscripts which are not sent for peer review (desk rejections). Manuscripts which are sent out for review can therefore have a significantly longer wait than this metric indicates.
• From submission to first post-review decision: the average (median) number of days for a manuscript submitted to the journal to receive a first decision if it is sent out for peer review. Based on manuscripts receiving a post-review first decision in the last six months.
• From acceptance to online publication: the average (median) number of days from acceptance of a manuscript to online publication of the Version of Record. Based on articles published in the last six months.
• Acceptance rate: articles accepted for publication by the journal in the previous calendar year as percentage of all papers receiving a final decision.

*Copyright: Journal Citation Reports®, Clarivate Analytics
†Copyright: CiteScore™, Scopus