SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is typically used in an effort to represent the prestige of a journal.

SJRs are a journal level metric.

The SJR (or, more specifically, the SJR2, which is the newer version of the SJR) is calculated by taking the weighted number of citations in a given year to citable publications published in the journal within the 3 preceding years, divided by the total number of citable publications published in the journal within the 3 preceding years. Citations from publications published in more prestigious journals will receive greater weight than those from less prestigious journals, with "prestige" value being dependent on field. The SJR additionally takes into account journal "closeness" via co-citation networks, with citations from "closer" journals receiving greater weight.

For additional information on how the SJR is calculated, see Guerrero-Bote and Moya-Anegón's 2012 article.

Note: SJRs will be based only on citing publications in Scopus (i.e., citations from publications that are not indexed in Scopus will not be factored into SJRs).

For example, The Journal of Fantabulous Examples (JFE) had an SJR of 1.5 in 2020. This would mean that articles published in JFE in 2017, 2018, and 2019 received an average of 1.5 weighted citations in 2020.

SJRs are unique to SCImago and Scopus. You can access SJRs in either of these two sources (with SCImago being publicly accessible).

Finding a journal's SJR in Scopus

1. Go to Scopus
2. Click "Sources" towards the top of the page
3. The default will allow you to search by subject area. If you would like to search by title, click the dropdown in the upper left-hand corner of the page
4. From the dropdown, click "Title"
5. Enter the name of the journal into the search bar
6. Look for the journal in your results
7. Click the title of the journal
8. The SJR will display in the upper right-hand corner of the page

Finding a journal's SJR in SCImago

You can access SJRs in one of two ways in SCImago. One method is to:

1. Go to SCImago
2. Enter the journal's title into the search bar in the upper right-hand corner of the page
3. Look for the journal in the results list
4. Click the journal name
5. Scroll down until you see a graph labeled SJR. Hover you mouse over different sections of the graph to see the SJR for that specific time period. Alternatively, you can click the table view in the upper right-hand corner of the graph

If you would like to see how your journal ranks with other journals in your field:

1. Go to SCImago
2. Click "All Subject Areas" to select a subject area
3. If you would like to narrow your subject further, click "All Subject Categories" to select a subject category
4. Look for the journal in the results list
5. The SJR will display in the third column from the left

Like any impact metric, SJRs have their limitations. Some of these limitations include:

• May be skewed by citation outliers (e.g., a single article may receive the vast majority of citations)
• May penalize interdisciplinary works (i.e., citations from within the journal's co-citation network are weighted higher than those from journals outside of the co-citation network)
• Not all citations are "good" citations (e.g., Article A may cite Article B to reject Article B's findings)
• A "good" SJR differs by field
• Includes some self-citation (but have a percentage cap, which helps mediate gamification, to an extent)
• Does not take into account social impact (e.g., an article trending on Twitter)
• Complex, and, due to large dataset, difficult to replicate
• Like all impact metrics, vulnerable to gamification (e.g., journal citation cartels)

For an overview of how SJR is calculated, see:

• Guerrero-Bote V, Moya-Anegón F. A further step forward in measuring journals' scientific prestige: The SJR2 indicator. Journal of Informetrics. 2012;6(4):674-688. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2012.07.001.

For a basic overview of the SJR and the Eigenfactor, see:

• Davis P. Network-based citation metrics: Eigenfactor vs SJR. The Scholarly Kitchen blog. July 28, 2015. Accessed April 8, 2022. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/07/28/network-based-citation-metrics-eigenfactor-vs-sjr/

For a look into the limitations of the SJR, see:

• Manana-Rodriguez J. A critical review of SCImago journal & country rank. Research Evaluation. 2015;24(4):343-354. doi:10.1093/reseval/rvu008.

For a look into journal citation cartels (which can manipulate journal level metrics, including the SJR) see:

• Kojaku S, Livan G, Masuda N. Detecting anomalous citation groups in journal networks. Scientific Reports. 2021 Jul;11(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93572-3.