Faculty going up for tenure and promotion need compelling evidence of the importance of journals in which they publish. The Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports® analyze citation data for objective critical evaluation of the research influence and impact of journals and categories of journals. This powerful tool carries a proportionate price tag, so that in the past, the University Libraries were unable to allocate funds for it, especially given the fact that more and more journals have homepages that list their impact factors.
Having access to JCR will be a benefit to both faculty and school/department P&T committees to distinguish among journals in fields that they are not necessarily familiar with. For example, Chris Einolf, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service, noted, “I have a general sense of how the sociology journals are ranked, but I actually publish more often in non-soc journals than in soc ones, and I have a hard time figuring out where to pitch articles.” He notes that even though most journals list the impact factor on the homepage, this is not sufficient information to rank journals within or across fields. “For tenure, it’s nice to say, ‘this is the 3rd ranked social psychology journal,’ or ‘this is the top-ranked journal in the sociology of religion,’ which you can’t do without a comparison.” Having access to JCR is especially valuable very early in the tenure process to allow faculty to submit to higher ranked journals and have a solid argument that their work is published in important journals.
As Einolf notes, far beyond the value of this resource to individual faculty is the contribution it can make to help departments and the university make informed tenure decisions.