CiteScore
What is CiteScore?
CiteScore is a metric developed by Elsevier, which is a publishing company. This metric is calculated based on citation information recorded in a database called Scopus. CiteScores are given for specific calendar years. Therefore, a journal will have a 2016 CiteScore, a 2017 CiteScore, and so on.
CiteScore is based on four-year periods. As an example, to calculate a journal's 2016 CiteScore, we first have to find the total number of citations received from 2013 and 2016 by papers published in that journal from 2013 to 2016. We then divide that total by the number of publications that appeared in the journal during the same time period.
Let's say that a journal received 650 citations from 2013-2016 to papers it published during those same years. During that same period of time, the journal published a total of 100 papers. To calculate the CiteScore, we would divide 650 (total citations) by 100 (total papers). This gives us a CiteScore of 6.5.
Using Scopus Sources to find a journal's CiteScore
The Scopus website has a page called "Sources" where you can find a journal's CiteScore. To access this page, click here. This page also has a link called “View CiteScore methodology”, where you can see an explanation of how CiteScore is calculated.
This "Sources" page is extremely useful. In addition to providing the CiteScore of journals indexed by Scopus, this page provides other metrics, such as Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank indicator (SJR).
Besides searching for specific journals, you can use Scopus Sources to search within subject areas and see which are the most impactful publications in particular disciplines. The resource offers several filters that you can use to refine your searches.
In summary, Scopus Sources is a fantastic tool to evaluate a journal's impact, identify prominent journals within a field of study, and compare different publications.
To see a short slide presentation on how to use Scopus Sources, click here or on the image shown below.
