Thomson Reuters Announces New 2011 Journal Citation Reports

- JCR Uncovers the Impact and Influence of Scholarly Journals in its Largest Release

PHILADELPHIA, June 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the release of the 2011 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), the world's most influential resource for information on highly cited, peer-reviewed publications and the source of annual Journal Impact Factors.

The 2011 release, with separate editions for Science and Social Sciences, features the largest-ever JCR with 10,677 journal listings in 232 disciplines; 2,552 publishers from 82 countries are represented. A total of 528 journals receive their first Journal Impact Factor in this latest JCR release.

The JCR includes a combination of impact and influence metrics, and millions of cited and citing journal data points that comprise the complete journal citation network in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science's Science and Social Science indexes, enabling its users to have an accurate view of each journal's ranking in the world of scholarly literature.

Since its inception in 1975, the JCR has grown steadily. The first JCR was released as a tool for assessing the performance of the world's leading scientific journals. Its first edition included 2,630 journals. The Social Sciences were included in the JCR in 1977, adding 1,285 additional journals that year. Throughout its 37-year history, the JCR has made continual updates to ensure that both coverage and indicators accurately reflect the changing trends in global research. The various metrics and detailed citation information included in JCR provide a multifaceted view of the importance researchers place on particular journals as evidence by citation. In 2006, Thomson Reuters launched a special initiative aimed at expanding coverage of Regional Content. The Web of Science now covers of 2,000 Regional Journals, many of which have appeared in the JCR for the first time in recent years.

"Since its inception and with every subsequent release the JCR has facilitated discovery for its worldwide subscribers," said James Testa, vice president of editorial and publisher relations at Thomson Reuters. "Thomson Reuters is fully aware of the importance of JCR in the scholarly community and is dedicated to the production of reliable metrics that can be used effectively in the ongoing selection of the world's top-tier international and regional journals – journals that exemplify the quality demanded by our users worldwide."

The JCR offers librarians, publishers, authors, researchers, universities, institutions and bibliometricians a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the world's leading journals with quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data.

Journal Selection decisions for the JCR are made throughout the course of a year with the goal of identifying, evaluating and selecting the most important and influential international and regional journals for coverage in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science platform. Once citations are available for a minimum 2-year period of time, these data are then analyzed and published in the JCR. 

For more information on Journal Citation Reports, please visit http://go.thomsonreuters.com/jcr/.

For information on how to submit journals, please visit: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/selection/.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.