CiteScore: Advances, Evolution, Applications, and Limitations
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CiteScore: Advances, Evolution, Applications, and Limitations Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Elsevier’s (Scopus) CiteScore, a journal-based metric (JBM), has been assigned to more journals than Clarivate Analytics’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF), including journals indexed by Scopus that do not carry a JIF. Unlike JIFs, CiteScore values are openly accessible. The advertisement of CiteScore, like other metrics, by journals or publishers may be in violation of DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) principles. While use of the CiteScore can provide interesting information about how a journal is being cited, the use of this JBM as a “quality” metric is cautioned. Keywords Biomedical science · Citations · DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) · Journal-based metric · Journal Impact Factor (JIF) · r (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) · ρ (rs) · Spearman’s correlation coefficient) · Transparency
CiteScore: The Rise of Elsevier’s Journal‑Based Metric When Elsevier launched CiteScore on December 8, 2016, it—and its “family of indicators”, eight in total—was lauded as a new transparent “standard” for Scopusindexed journals.1 CiteScore was warmly received but cautiously praised over its superior transparency to the dominant journal-based metric (JBM), the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), owned by Clarivate Analytics, and based on Web of Science (WoS) indexing.2 The JIF is frequently—and erroneously—equated with journal “quality” and tends to be used as an author-based metric to assess an academic’s 1
https://www.elsevier.com/editors-update/story/journal-metrics/citescore-a-new-metric-to-help-youchoose-the-right-journal; https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/science-and-technology/elsev ier-releases-2017-citescore-values (last accessed: May 15, 2020). 2 Select examples: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/12/12/citescore-flawed-but-still-a-gamechanger/; https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/01/11/the-measure-of-all-things-some-notes-on-cites core/ (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
* Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva [email protected] 1
P. O. Box 7, Miki‑cho post office, Ikenobe, 3011‑2, Miki‑cho, Kagawa‑ken 761‑0799, Japan
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output [1]. Given that CiteScore covers a longer period (3 years) than the JIF (2 years), and that it includes a wider range of article types or documents (as opposed to research articles only by JIF) [2], and the fact that it could also be assigned to books and conference proceedings,3 it was argued that CiteScore might represent a wider or more realistic perspective of a journal’s published content and portfolio, and thus a more congruent (or “realistic”) JBM than the JIF [3]. Very importantly, it is not easy to equate, or compare, the JIF and CiteScore across subject areas, since journals are classed by the respective databases into distinct categories [4], although such a comparison is clearly possible, and ea
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