Clarivate’s 2024 release of the Journal Citation Reports™ represents a major milestone in enhancing journal evaluation and transparency. By consolidating categories and unifying rankings, Clarivate provides a more comprehensive and accessible tool for the research community. These improvements support evidence-based decision-making and promote inclusivity across all disciplines. Researchers, publishers, and librarians can now confidently navigate the evolving landscape of scholarly publishing with reliable, publisher-neutral data.
Key Changes in Clarivate’s 2024 Journal Citation Reports™ Release
- Unified Rankings:
- Unified rankings for 229 science and social science categories, including journals from the Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI).
- Category-First Approach:
- Decoupling of categories from their editions (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, and ESCI) to enable exploration of all journals in the same category within the application.
- Consolidation of categories across editions (e.g., History & Philosophy of Science is now unified into one category).
- Simplified Journal Impact Factor (JIF):
- Display of JIF to one decimal point.
- Extension of JIF to all journals in the Web of Science Core Collection™.
- Single Ranking Structure:
- Combined rankings for journals in categories that exist across multiple editions (e.g., Psychiatry includes journals from SCIE, SSCI, and ESCI in a single ranking).
- Transparency and Inclusivity Enhancements:
- All Web of Science Core Collection journals, including new, open access, niche, regionally focused, and Global South journals, are available for analysis.
- Full transparency into citation data for each journal.
- Elimination of three decimal places in JIF to prevent misinterpretation.
- Arts and Humanities Categories:
- 25 arts and humanities categories in AHCI and ESCI will no longer receive a rank, quartile, or percentile; a policy statement will be displayed on each journal’s profile page.
These changes collectively aim to provide a more comprehensive, inclusive, and transparent tool for journal evaluation and decision-making.
(From Clarivate’s sources)