Citation and Journal Metrics: Journal h-index (Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science)

Visit Google Scholar Metrics Help for more information on the metrics provided, coverage and inclusion.

Using data from Google Scholar, the freely available Publish or Perish software can be used to generate a variety of metrics.

Developed by Anne-Wil Harzing, Professor in International Management at the University of Melbourne, the program can be installed without the need for administrative privileges.

Why use Publish or Perish?

• Generate a broader range of metrics than available through Google Scholar Metrics.
• Ability to generate metrics for customised lists of publications e.g. those from a specific year range – it may be relevant to have a different publication window than five years for your discipline.

SCImago Journal and Country Rank uses Scopus data to compare journals and countries. It is freely available on the web.

• Use the Journal Search tab to view information on an individual title, including its subject area, subject category and h-index.
• The Journal Rankings tab allows you to retrieve a list of journals within a subject area or category and order by h-index

Journal h-index is one measure of the quality of a journal and can be calculated using data from Web of Science, Scopus or Google Scholar. As with the impact factor, journal h-index does not take into account differing citation practices of fields (unlike the weighted SJR and SNIP) and so is best used to compare journals within a field.

Flexible publication window

While JCR's impact factor offers calculations based on windows of two and five years, and SJR and SNIP are based on three years, the h-index publication window can be selected to best suit the citation practices of a discipline. 

Go to Google Scholar and select Metrics type in the title of the journal - you may need to try more than one spelling (e.g. with or without ampersand, alternate title, abbreviated title); the h5-index and h5-median will appear if available; select the hyperlinked h5-index to view the h5-core (articles cited at least h times) and to see if the journal is in the top 20 of a subject category.

The Google Scholar h5-index is based on a five year publication window, 2013-2017. To calculate h-index based on a different range of years use Harzing's Publish or Perish.

If your journal title does not appear:

• Try alternate spellings.
• Journal may not be indexed by Google Scholar.
• Records for the journal may be present in Google Scholar, but the h-index may not have been automatically calculated (e.g. where there are fewer than a hundred articles in the five-year period). In this case Publish or Perish can be used to calculate the h-index.

Scopus

From the Search tab: enter journal title e.g. "organization studies" and select Source Title from the drop-down menu; set the desired publication window using the Date Range limit; select Search; check that the target title is the only journal listed under Refine > Source Title in the left-hand side column - if not, tick the box next to the target title and Limit to; Select all documents from the result list (to access this see drop-down options for the checkbox above the list of results); select View citation overview; h-index appears to the right-hand-side of the screen.

Web of Science

From Search > Web of Science Core Collection: enter journal title e.g. "organization studies" and select Publication Name from the drop-down menu; set the desired publication window using the Timespan limit; select Search; check that the target title is the only journal listed under Refine Results > Source Titles in the left-hand side column - if not, tick the box next to the target title and Refine; select Create Citation Report; h-index appears to the right-hand-side of the screen.