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have an advantage because an article published earlier in the year has a better chance of being cited
than one published later in the year. Many publications that publish infrequently or late in the year
have low Immediacy Indexes. For comparing journals specializing in cutting edge emerging areas
of research, the Immediacy Index can provide a useful perspective, however, as peaking of citations
usually takes several years, the Immediacy Index may not predict ultimate citation performance. It
would be important to mention that it has a serious flaw, for example, for items published towards the
end of the year, it would be nearly impossible for them to earn any citations before the year is out.

The Five-year Impact Factor is more useful for subject areas where it takes longer for work to be cited,
or where research has more longevity. It offers more stability for smaller titles as there are a larger
number of articles and citations included in the calculation. However, it still suffers from many of the
same issues as the traditional Impact Factor.

Impact Per Publication (IPP)

Based on the Scopus database, IPP was introduced on the lines of JIF in 2014, and is calculated by
Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS). It is defined as the number
of citations given in a specific year to publications in the past three years divided by the total number
of peer-reviewed publications (papers, reviews) in the preceding three years. For example, if one is
considering the IPP for the year 2019, then the publications would be from 2016 to 2018. Like the
JIF, IPP does not correct for differences in citation practices between different disciplines. Previously
known as Raw Impact per Publication (RIP), it has been replaced by CiteScore Index in 2016.

CiteScore

CiteScore, released by Scopus in December 2016 and calculated by CWTS, replaces the IPP metric
that used to be available in Elsevier’s Scopus database. CiteScore is quite similar to IPP, however
its novelty is in the source items considered for its calculation. Apart from considering conference
proceedings, along with journals being its source items, it includes letters, editorials, corrections,
and news items, besides articles and review articles, for the calculation of citations. Since CiteScore
includes larger number of sources and document types, therefore, it seems to have advantage of being
more representative compared to IPP. It is currently available for journals and book series, which are
indexed in Scopus. In addition to CiteScore, Scopus also publish additional rankings, such as the
CiteScore percentile based on subject categories, and a monthly CiteScore tracker, for details one can
visit JournalMetric.com.

CiteScore suffers from some of the same drawbacks as JIF, namely that it isn’t comparable across
disciplines and it is a mean calculated from a skewed distribution. It is perhaps instructive to compare
CiteScore and JIF as both the indexes evaluate journals, of course based on different databases.

CiteScore JIF
Uses a three-year citation window Uses two-year window
Based on the Scopus database (number of citations and Based on Web of Science database
journal coverage In certain subjects is higher)
Includes all document types: in citation count In the Numerator includes citations to any
numerator and publication count in the only denominator; type of publication; denominator
both fully consistent includes selected document types.
Covers all subjects Only available for journals indexed in
the SCIE and SSCI

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