Advertisement Search Menu SpringerOpen and impact We’re proud of the impact our journals have—from citations to social media shares; from advancing discovery within individual disciplines to affecting public discourse and policymaking. On this page you can find some information and resources on SpringerOpen journals' metrics and impact. San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment SpringerOpen has become a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the commitment to move away from a single measure of a journal’s impact (Impact Factor) to the provision of a wider set of metrics and measurements. SpringerOpen has been compliant with the majority of DORA recommendations for some time, and a commitment to reducing emphasis on Impact Factor is the final step in enacting DORA practices in research assessment. We are committed to the following recommendations: Greatly reduce emphasis on the journal impact factor as a promotional tool, ideally by ceasing to promote the impact factor or by presenting the metric in the context of a variety of journal-based metrics that provide a richer view of journal performance. Make available a range of article-level metrics to encourage a shift toward assessment based on the scientific content of an article rather than publication metrics of the journal in which it was published. Encourage responsible authorship practices and the provision of information about the specific contributions of each author. Find out what the entire declaration that means here. Your guide to Journal Metrics A number of journal-level metrics have emerged over recent years in an effort to broaden the evaluation of scholarly journals. The list below provides a brief explanation of the metrics we display (where available) on our journal websites. Speed and usage are updated early in the calendar year and reflect the previous calendar year. Citation impact details are updated in the middle of the calendar year following the release of these metrics by both Clarivate Analytics and Scopus. Speed Days to first decision for reviewed manuscripts only: Mean average number of days from submission to first decision for reviewed manuscripts in the publisher’s online system. Days to first decision for all manuscripts: Mean average number of days from submission to first decision for all manuscripts in the publisher’s online system. Days from submission to acceptance: Mean average number of days from submission to acceptance for all accepted manuscripts in the publisher’s online system. Days from acceptance to publication: Mean average number of days from acceptance to online publication. This number takes into account all articles published in the calendar year. Citation Impact 2-year Impact Factor: Metric calculated by Clarivate Analytics and available in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) product. The 2-year journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two 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 two previous years. 5 year Impact Factor: Metric calculated by Clarivate Analytics and available in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) product. 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. SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper): This metric includes all journals contained in the Scopus® database from 1996. The SNIP measures a source’s contextual citation impact by weighing citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. It helps to make a direct comparison of sources in different subject fields. SNIP especially considers the frequency at which authors cite other papers in their reference lists, the speed at which citation impact matures and the extent to which the database used in the assessment covers the field’s literature. More information about SNIP. SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): This metric includes all journals contained in the Scopus® database from 1996. The SJR measures weighted citations received by the journal. Weightings depend on the subject field and prestige (SJR) of the citing journal and in general, self-citations are not included in the calculation and citation weighting. More information about SJR. CiteScore: This metric is provided by Elsevier using data from Scopus® and is the average citations per document that a title receives over a three-year period. It is calculated as the number of citations received in the given year to documents published in the previous three years, divided by the number of documents for the three years. Usage Downloads: Downloads reflect the number of times full text or PDF versions of articles are accessed directly from the journal website and Springer Link. Downloads are defined as HTML, LookInside, PDF and Epub clicks. Please note that this does not include article downloads from mirror databases such as PubMed Central. Altmetric Mentions: Total number of mentions (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Reddit, Blogs, News articles, Policy documents and Faculty of 1000 reviews) for articles published in the specified timeframe, as provided by Altmetric. Read our articles on research metrics The Journal Impact Factor is under attack—use the CAPCI factor instead Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact Beyond journal impact factors? Z factor: a new index for measuring academic research output Having an impact (factor) Reliability of journal impact factor rankings Sometimes the impact factor outshines the H index The "impact factor" revisited Time trends in the impact factor of Public Health journals The level of non-citation of articles within a journal as a measure of quality: a comparison to the impact factor The effect of journal impact factor, reporting conflicts, and reporting funding sources, on standardized effect sizes in back pain trials: a systematic review and meta-regression Global collaborative networks on meta-analyses of randomized trials published in high impact factor medical journals: a social network analysis Bridging knowledge translation gap in health in developing countries: visibility, impact and publishing standards in journals from the Eastern Mediterranean Milestones and Impact Factors Marketing data: Has the rise of impact factor led to the fall of objective language in the scientific article? The strike rate index: a new index for journal quality based on journal size and the h-index of citations Endorsement of the CONSORT Statement by high impact factor medical journals: a survey of journal editors and journal 'Instructions to Authors' Impact factor, H index, peer comparisons, and Retrovirology: is it time to individualize citation metrics? Impact factors of dermatological journals for 1991-2000 Sign up to Article Alerts Interested in a specific journal? Sign up to article alerts and get the latest articles straight to your inbox. Discover our free open access funding support service Did you know that we offer a free support service to make it easier to discover and apply for article-processing charge (APC) funding? We can provide personalized advice on OA funds that may be available to you, advice about compliance with your funder—and much more! 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