There are several ways to find Impact Factors; see details below.
 

IMPACT FACTORS

• ​​​​​​​A journal's Impact Factor is calculated based on citation statistics.

• Typically the impact factor is derived from how often the "average article" published within the journal is cited by others in the scientific or research literature within a given period of time (usually up to two years after publication). 

• The higher the Impact Factor, the more often articles from that journal are cited within the research literature.

• The ISI Impact Factor (from the Journal Citation Report (JCR) database) is the most popular. The Capella Library does not subscribe to the JCR database, however this number is often published on journal websites.

• There are several freely accessible sources where you can find similar rankings, such as Eigenfactor (EF) or Article Influence (AI) scores for journals.

  • Eigenfactor.org is one of the most popular sites for journal scores and rankings.  You can use the site to search by journal name or by ISI category.

  • Learn more about Eigenfactor and how they determine their EF and AI scores.

JOURNAL RATINGS

• Universities and other institutions will often survey expert scientists to subjectively evaluate journals for a variety of purposes.  The journal rating lists created by these surveys are often useful when evaluating journals that do not have Impact Factors available.

• Most popular journal rating lists on the internet focus on business publications, but there are many psychology titles also included in the following:

  • Academic Journal Quality Guide (from the Association of Business Schools).

  • ABDC Journal List (from the Australian Business Deans Council).

  • Journal Quality List (from Harzing.com).

Note: Not all journals will be included in these lists.

JOURNAL RANKINGS

• Many researchers use journal rankings to help them evaluate journal quality. While many of these ranking lists are proprietary and not available without a subscription or membership, one open access journal ranking source is Journal-Ranking.com, which contains ranking information for over 11,000 journals.

• To view these rankings:

  • SCImago Journal Rankings List where you can see a listing of ALL JOURNALS or select a specific subject

  • Scimago Business Journals