The eigenfactor metrics™: A network approach to assessing scholarly journals

Abstract

Limited time and budgets have created a legitimate need for quantitative measures of scholarly work. The well-known journal impact factor is the leading measure of this sort; here we describe an alternative approach based on the full structure of the scholarly citation network. The Eigenfactor Metrics-Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score-use an iterative ranking scheme similar to Google's PageRank algorithm. By this approach, citations from top journals are weighted more heavily than citations from lower-tier publications. Here we describe these metrics and the rankings that they provide. © Jevin D. West, Theodore C. Bergstrom, and Carl T. Bergstrom.