Eigenfactor

Eigenfactor Score is a metric that measures the overall influence of a scholarly journal within the scientific literature. It aims to reflect the prestige conferred by citations across the scholarly network, not merely the average number of citations per article. The approach treats citations as votes and weighs them by the influence of the citing journal, rather than counting all citations equally.

Methodology centers on a network-based algorithm similar to PageRank. The citation network is built from inter-journal citations over a five-year window. Citations from highly influential journals carry more weight than those from less influential ones, and self-citations are excluded. The resulting scores represent each journal’s share of total influence in the network.

Scores are scaled so that the sum of all journals’ Eigenfactor scores in a given year equals 100. In addition, the Article Influence Score is derived by dividing a journal’s Eigenfactor by the number of articles it published, then normalizing so that the mean Article Influence score across journals is 1.0. Data for the calculations come from large citation indexes that cover a broad range of journals.

Eigenfactor is often presented alongside traditional metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor. It offers a broad perspective on influence by weighting citations from influential sources, but it has limitations. It can favor larger or multidisciplinary journals and is sensitive to coverage and field-specific citation practices. Consequently, it should be used in conjunction with other indicators rather than as a sole measure of quality.