ISI Impact Factors versus Scopus SJC Factors

Thanks to Prof. Rene Garreaud of the Departamento de Geofisica, Universidad de Chile, for sending me this graphic showing the comparison between the Impact Factor of ISI Web of Knowledge and the SJC Factor of SCOPUS, for journals in atmospheric sciences. These scores are commonly used to assess the “prestige” or “quality” of scientific journals. Although the two quantities are calculated differently, Rene’s graph shows that there is decent correlation between the two quantities. Not all journals have both of these scores calculated, though.

In fact, there is another journal ranking system by Google Scholar. Here is the link for atmospheric sciences.

Monthly Weather Review, the journal I serve as Chief Editor for, is much higher on Google Scholar’s rankings (6th) than ISI rankings (18th, the last time I looked at their proprietary rankings, so are only available to subscribers). I’m not impressed by the ISI ranking showing International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control very high on the list—my reading of that journal is that it is primarily an engineering journal, not an atmospheric science journal.

As far as “relevance” or “impact” goes, I never really care too much about these numbers. As I often say to people, the most relevant journal is the one that gets your article in the hands of the most people who will want to read it. By that measure, if I were to publish my latest research in some high impact factor journals, there would be little guarantee that any of my colleagues would read it. Synoptic meteorologists simply don’t read or publish in many of those journals. So, my ideas would not get the widest possible dispersal to the most relevant audience.

So, do I want to publish in a high impact factor journal, or do I want people to read my work?