IEEE Journals Dominate Citation Rankings Across Technology Categories

NISO Member News

Piscataway, NJ | 18 July 2022

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization advancing technology for humanity, announced today that its journals once again dominated the citation rankings across multiple technology fields including Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Telecommunications, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Hardware, Automation & Control Systems, Cybernetics, Imaging Science, and more, according to the 2021 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate, released in late June 2022. 

In fact, a wide range of IEEE publications were consistently listed among the top-cited journals in multiple categories of the JCR findings as measured by Journal Impact Factor, including the highest ranking journal in seven JCR categories:

• Automation & Control Systems
• Cybernetics (Computer Science)
• Hardware & Architecture (Computer Science)
• Information Systems (Computer Science)
• Imaging Science & Photographic Technology
• Telecommunications
• Remote Sensing

Further, IEEE periodicals led in most technology-related categories:

• 8 of the top 10 journals in Electrical & Electronic Engineering
• 9 of the top 10 journals in Telecommunications
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Automation & Control Systems 
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Cybernetics
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Hardware & Architecture
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Information Systems
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Software Engineering
• 3 of the top 5 journals in Imaging Science

Specifically, the following IEEE journals ranked No. 1 in their respective categories:

• IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (Category: Telecommunications)
• IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (Categories: Automation and Control Systems, Cybernetics)
• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (Categories: Computer Hardware & Architecture)
• IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (Category: Information Systems)
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine (Categories: Imaging Science, Remote Sensing)

The annual JCR study by Clarivate examines the influence and impact of scholarly research and offers a systematic, objective means to evaluate the world's leading journals. By compiling articles' cited references, the JCR helps to measure research influence and impact, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.

“The JCR Impact Factor rankings are one of several important methods scientists and research professionals use to gauge the quality of journals and magazines when they are considering where to submit their articles,” says Lawrence Hall, IEEE Vice President-Publication Services and Products. “The story the rankings tell is of IEEE’s tremendous dedication to consistently publishing discoveries of significance in our fields of interest in a timely manner. Another key factor in determining publication quality is usage, and usage of IEEE publications via the IEEE Xplore® digital library increases significantly each year, with more than 15 million downloads each and every month. I would like to thank all of our many authors, reviewers, and editors for their important contributions to help IEEE continue to publish the highest quality and most vital information in the field.”

IEEE also monitors other common bibliometric journal measurements such as Article Influence® Score and Eigenfactor®. Although calculated differently than Impact Factor, IEEE journals score extremely well in those additional citation measurements as well. In fact, IEEE Access, IEEE’s largest fully open access publication, is ranked as the No. 1 journal by Eigenfactor in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, and increased in Impact Factor to 3.476 in the latest report. 

In addition, the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (J-STARS), another one of IEEE’s leading fully open access publications, was one of the top ten titles in Imaging Science by Eigenfactor and posted an impact factor of 4.715, a significant increase from the prior year. Also worth noting, the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, another one of IEEE's top-cited open access titles, was ranked one of the top ten titles in Rehabilitation by Eigenfactor and posted an impact factor of 4.528, also a significant increase from the prior year.

For more detailed information on IEEE rankings and how each bibliometric measurement is calculated, please see the full results.

About This Organization

About IEEE

IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice in a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers, and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power, and consumer electronics. Learn more at https://www.ieee.org.