A Comparative study of Impact Factor (IF) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) in Library and Information Science journals

Abstract

Background and aim: Journal Citation Report (JCR) is the oldest and most important database of Journal's assessment. The aim of this study was to determine the IF ranked in JCR database compare to the SJR ranked in SCImago database during a three-year period from 2012 to 2014. Material and methods: This comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on 38 Library and Information Science journals using scientometric method and the data were collected from Thomson Reuters and Scopus databases. Findings: According to the findings, there was a positive correlation between the values of IF and SJR in Library and Information Science journals indexed in Scopus and Thompson Reuters databases. In addition, there was a positive relationship between the ranking of these journals indexed in JCR and Scopus (P<0.05). Conclusion: The result showed that it is necessary to use both of these ranking systems such as Scimago and SJR by the researchers of the field of Library and Information Science.

Keywords

• Journal ranking
• Journal impact factor
• Library and Information Science
• Journal citation report
• SCImago
• SJR