How the forecasts are made
What the model considers
The model considers open bibliographic and citation metadata, recent citation momentum, journal output volume, publication mix, field-level signals, and selected manual review flags. Detailed scoring logic is proprietary and not publicly disclosed.
- 01Open bibliographic metadataJournal-level publication and citation records from open sources.
- 02Recent citation momentumHow quickly recent articles are accumulating citations, relative to the journal's own baseline.
- 03Journal output volumeChanges in the number and type of articles a journal publishes.
- 04Publication mixThe balance of article types, which cite and are cited at different rates.
- 05Field-level signalsCitation trends of the surrounding specialty, which lift or dampen individual journals.
What the scores mean
The Current Impact Score describes a journal's present citation impact on an open-data basis. The Forecast Impact Score estimates where that impact may stand in the next annual release, expressed on the same scale. Each forecast carries a direction — Upward, Stable, or Downward Signal — and a confidence level of High, Medium, or Low.
Forecast Impact Scores and Forecast Signals are informational decision-support signals. They are not the Journal Impact Factor, are not calculated from Journal Citation Reports, and do not guarantee future journal performance, future JIF values, acceptance probability, or publication success.
Validation against official journal metrics
Retrospective validation showed that the independently calculated Current Impact Scores closely aligned with official journal metrics released subsequently. Forecast Impact Scores estimate the next annual release and remain forward-looking estimates.
Journal Impact Forecast independently calculates its scores from open scholarly data and does not reproduce or redistribute Journal Citation Reports data.