We have recently been tweeting about Walsh Medical Media. One of the things we have been asking questions about is their CiteScore claims. Rather than look at each journal on Twitter, we thought we take the opportunity to look at all their journals so that everything is in one, easily accessible place.
What is CiteScore?
CiteScore is Elsevier’s way of measuring the impact of a journal. It looks at the number of citations received by a journal in the last four years, divided by the number of papers published in the last four years. For example, if a journal had published 82 papers between 2018 and 2021 and had recorded 2,522 citations in the same time period, the journal would have a CiteScore of 82/2,522 = 30.8.
CiteScore is Elsevier’s way of being able to compare one journal with another with regard to the impact the journal is having.
The video below explains more about CiteScore, if you are interested.
Walsh Medical Media on Scopus
One of this things you can do on Scopus is to look up a given journal and find out (among other things) its CiteScore.
You can also look up a publisher. If you look up “Walsh Medical Media“, which we did on 30 July 2022, only one journal was returned, see Figure 1.
Checking the claims made by Walsh Medical Media
Figure 1 shows that only one journal is indexed by Scopus, and thus only one journal can have a Scopus CiteScore.
The table at the end of this article records the claims made by Walsh Medical Media, for all of its 77 journals. We have noted the impact factor (not relevant to this article) and the CiteScore.
Of the 77 journals, 13 of them do not list a CiteScore. The other 64 journals all list a CiteScore value.
Given that Figure 1 shows only one journal, it would appear that Walsh Medical Media is claiming CiteScores for journals, which is actually not the case.
Some journals used to have a CiteScore
When we were tweeting about Walsh Medical Media’s CiteScores, somebody mentioned that one of their journal’s used to have a CiteScore. You can see the tweet here (make sure you look at the comments).
On the journal’s web site (see Figure 2), the journal says that it has a CiteScore of 16.46.
The response to our tweet was saying that the journal Biology and Medicine used to have a CiteScore but its coverage has now been discontinued from Scopus.
If we dig around in Scopus, we can find where Biology and Medicine was indexed by Scopus (see Figure 3). You can see that it was indexed between 2009 to 2016, but coverage has now been discontinued.
When it was being indexed, the journal had a CiteScore of 0.3, which is a long way from the 16.46 that is currently being claimed. So, not only is the journal is claiming a CiteScore which is not valid, but the claimed value (16.46) is way higher than the CiteScore they had in 2015 (0.3).
Clinical Schizophrenia and Related Psychoses
The one journal of Walsh Medical Media that is indexed by Scopus is Clinical Schizophrenia and Related Psychoses. Scopus reports that it has a 2021 CiteScore of 0.9. We find it a little strange that they do not mention this on the page that lists all of their journals, although the CiteScore is mentioned on the journal’s home page.
Final Comments
Unless we are missing something, it appears that Walsh Medical Media is claiming that 64 of its journals have a Scopus CiteScore when, in fact, only one of their journals is currently indexed by Scopus.
We hope that Walsh Medical Media will see this article and either correct/clarify the statements they making about CiteScores, or let us know that we have got it wrong and we would be happy to update this article and apologise.
It would also be interesting to know what Scopus/Elsevier have to say about this and whether they can take any action.
Archived Resources
Just so that you can look at the same information that we viewed, we have saved a copy of the list of journal’s published by Walsh Medical Media on Wayback Machine. You can view this page here (saved on 30 July 2022).
Walsh Medical Media: Journals
| # | Journal | Impact Factor | CiteScore |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Journal of Advanced Chemical Engineering | 8.94 | 5.62 |
| 2 | Advances in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety | 8.71 | 7.24 |
| 3 | Journal of Aging Science | 3.91 | 4.70 |
| 4 | Agrotechnology | 3.83 | 0.96 |
| 5 | Journal of Allergy & Therapy | 5.15 | 7.57 |
| 6 | Journal of Anthropology Reports | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 7 | Journal of Applied Mechanical Engineering | 3.18 | 4.02 |
| 8 | Journal of Aquaculture Research & Development | No Impact Factor | 21.11 |
| 9 | Journal of Astrobiology & Outreach | 10.00 | 4.38 |
| 10 | Journal of Bacteriology & Parasitology | 9.89 | 11.83 |
| 11 | Biochemistry & Analytical Biochemistry | 12.02 | 18.91 |
| 12 | Bioenergetics: Open Access | 16.67 | 4.70 |
| 13 | Journal of Bioequivalence & Bioavailability | 11.85 | 13.64 |
| 14 | Biology and Medicine | 11.48 | 16.46 |
| 15 | Journal of Biomolecular Research & Therapeutics | 0.68 | 0.95 |
| 16 | Journal of Blood Disorders & Transfusion | No Impact Factor | 9.08 |
| 17 | Brain Disorders & Therapy | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 18 | Journal of Carcinogenesis & Mutagenesis | 3.02 | 12.43 |
| 19 | Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Open Access | 0.84 | 1.49 |
| 20 | Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology | No Impact Factor | 4.81 |
| 21 | Clinical & Medical Biochemistry | 1.58 | 2.64 |
| 22 | Journal of Clinical and Medical Sciences | 0.29 | 0.27 |
| 23 | Clinical Microbiology: Open Access | 5.25 | 7.24 |
| 24 | Journal of Clinical Research & Bioethics | 6.96 | 6.59 |
| 25 | Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 26 | Clinics in Mother and Child Health | 2.18 | 2.51 |
| 27 | Journal of Coastal Zone Management | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 28 | Journal of Data Mining in Genomics & Proteomics | 21.83 | 13.03 |
| 29 | Dentistry | 2.96 | 4.16 |
| 30 | Journal of Dermatitis | 1.10 | 0.80 |
| 31 | Diabetes Case Reports | 3.45 | 1.69 |
| 32 | Journal of Eye Diseases and Disorders | 0.52 | 0.60 |
| 33 | Fermentation Technology | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 34 | Journal of Food Processing & Technology | No Impact Factor | 24.38 |
| 35 | Journal of Forensic Biomechanics | 4.20 | 4.30 |
| 36 | Journal of Forensic Psychology | 1.00 | 1.24 |
| 37 | Gene Technology | 3.60 | 1.68 |
| 38 | Gerontology & Geriatric Research | 5.62 | 5.14 |
| 39 | Global Journal of Biology, Agriculture & Health Sciences | 4.04 | 6.71 |
| 40 | Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 41 | Health Care : Current Reviews | 2.86 | 2.85 |
| 42 | Hereditary Genetics: Current Research | 4.88 | 4.50 |
| 43 | Journal of Infectious Diseases and Diagnosis | 2.67 | 1.01 |
| 44 | Intellectual Property Rights: Open Access | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 45 | International Journal of Accounting Research | 4.12 | 4.02 |
| 46 | International Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation | 7.69 | 3.60 |
| 47 | International Journal of Waste Resources | 8.90 | 9.38 |
| 48 | Journal of Liver | 3.00 | No CiteScore |
| 49 | Journal of Membrane Science & Technology | 7.33 | 9.58 |
| 50 | Journal of Microbial & Biochemical Technology | 5.89 | 32.11 |
| 51 | Modern Chemistry & Applications | 4.24 | 4.84 |
| 52 | Journal of Nanomedicine & Nanotechnology | 14.59 | 19.39 |
| 53 | Journal of Neonatal Biology | 10.62 | 6.66 |
| 54 | Journal of Nutrition & Weight Loss | 0.75 | 0.40 |
| 55 | Journal of Nutritional Disorders & Therapy | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 56 | Journal of Ocular Infection and Inflammation | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 57 | Oral Health and Dental Management | 8.86 | 15.70 |
| 58 | Journal of Pain Management & Medicine | 2.80 | 2.62 |
| 59 | Journal of Patient Care | 0.73 | 1.26 |
| 60 | Journal of Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology | 11.13 | 18.26 |
| 61 | Pharmaceutica Analytica Acta | No Impact Factor | 1.67 |
| 62 | Journal of Pharmacogenomics & Pharmacoproteomics | 9.70 | 10.46 |
| 63 | Journal of Pharmacovigilance | 7.87 | 14.26 |
| 64 | Journal of Plant Pathology & Microbiology | 12.85 | 16.94 |
| 65 | Journal of Psychiatry | No Impact Factor | No CiteScore |
| 66 | Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS | 4.07 | 3.17 |
| 67 | Review of Public Administration and Management | 9.39 | 9.89 |
| 68 | Single Cell Biology | 2.57 | 2.03 |
| 69 | Journal of Socialomics | 8.64 | 4.03 |
| 70 | Journal of Stem Cell Research & Therapy | 7.82 | 12.88 |
| 71 | Journal of Surgery and Anesthesia | 1.20 | 0.45 |
| 72 | Journal of Thrombosis and Circulation: Open Access | 0.47 | No CiteScore |
| 73 | Journal of Tropical Diseases & Public Health | 5.00 | No CiteScore |
| 74 | Tropical Medicine & Surgery | 5.90 | 10.32 |
| 75 | Journal of Tumour Research & Reports | 0.42 | 1.25 |
| 76 | Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination | 6.60 | 5.77 |
| 77 | Journal of Vascular Medicine & Surgery | 2.03 | 2.08 |