Society Journals – metrics update 2022
13 July 2022
We are pleased to share the 2022 metrics updates for publications at the Microbiology Society.
Strong performance from the Microbiology Society journals in 2022 is reflected in the suite of metrics we track each year. Following two years where the importance of microbiology has grown in the public consciousness, we can see this reflected in the increased usage, citations, impact and discussion around all of our titles. Each metric tracked below at the journal level reflects a different aspect of quality, and therefore we ask that all are taken together to determine the measure of our journals’ success.
Both Journal of General Virology and Journal of Medical Microbiology saw large increases across our tracked metrics this year, reflecting the increased load of research in their respective areas, while both titles maintained their quality thresholds and supported their communities. The excitement over the conversion of Access Microbiology was reflected in our increased altmetric scores, and we hope that continues as the preprinting element of the platform will encourage earlier sharing of research.
We thank all of our Editors, Authors, Reviewers and Members of the Microbiology Society for their incredible efforts in advocating for society publishing – as every paper we publish not only bears the stamp of quality from our stable of journals, but directly supports all the other activities we do at the Society.
1. Article level metrics
| Metric | Microbiology | Journal of General Virology | Journal of Medical Microbiology | International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology | Microbial Genomics | Access Microbiology |
| Unique full-text downloads | 2,769,650 | 1,647,907 | 1,387,743 | 4,620,636 | 360,095 | 160,817 |
| Mean Altmetric score | 9.7 | 6.1 | 4.1 | 8.2 | 8.8 | 4.8 |
| Median Altmetric score | 5 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 2 |
2. Journal level metrics
| Metric | Microbiology | Journal of General Virology | Journal of Medical Microbiology | International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology | Microbial Genomics |
| 2-year Journal Impact Factor | 2.956 | 5.141 | 3.196 | 2.689 | 4.868 |
| 5-year Journal Impact Factor | 2.815 | 4.169 | 2.956 | 2.925 | 7.142 |
| Immediacy Index | 0.66 | 1.221 | 0.699 | 0.411 | 0.846 |
| Cited half-life | 14.4 | 13.3 | 10.4 | 8.8 | 3.5 |
| CiteScore | 5.2 | 6.9 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 5.7 |
| SNIP | 0.868 | 1.407 | 0.87 | 1.055 | 1.293 |
- 2-year Journal Impact Factor: The Journal Impact Factor is defined as all citations to the journal in the current JCR year to items published in the previous two years, divided by the total number of scholarly items (these comprise articles, reviews, and proceedings papers) published in the journal in the previous two years.
- 5-year Impact Factor: The 5-year journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the five previous years.
- Immediacy Index: The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published.
- Cited half-life: The median age of the articles that were cited in the JCR year. Half of a journal's cited articles were published more recently than the cited half-life.
- CiteScore: CiteScore measures average citations received per document published in the serial.
- SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): The SNIP measures actual citations received relative to citations expected for the serial’s subject field.
- Full-text downloads: How many times articles in that journal were accessed in 2021.
- Altmetrics: Altmetrics are non-traditional metrics proposed as an alternative to citation impact metrics. A paper’s Altmetric score is a weighted measure of its mentions in the press and on social media, among others, and is displayed on each article page. We specifically calculated the scores based on publication dates in 2021, and took the current Altmetric scores as at 12 July 2022. We urge people to evaluate each article individually for its reach in social media and news sites by using the Altmetrics widget on each article page.
Image: Dennis Kunkel.