SCImago have recently published their 2008 journal rankings with BioMed Central journals continuing to rank highly within their fields.

The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is a measure of a journals’ citation impact and is calculated in a similar manner to Google’s Page Rank. This approach calculates a journal rank by weighting citations from journals according to how highly cited the journal is itself. (Full details on the SJR algorithm are available here). The data used for calculation of the SJR is drawn from Scopus.

Highlights for BioMed Central journals among SCImago’s 2008 rankings include:

• Arthritis Research & Therapy (SJR = 0.629) ranking 2nd of 35 journals in the Rheumatology category.

• BMC Complementary & Alternative Medicine (SJR = 0.151), which is positioned 2nd of the 46 journals in the Complementary & Alternative Medicine category.

• BMC Systems Biology (SJR = 0.373) which tops the Applied Mathematics category, beating 219 journals to the number one spot. The journal is also placed 2nd of 72 journals in the Modelling and Simulation category.

• International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (SJR = 01.84) comes 2nd of 53 titles in the Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation category. This journal, Nutrition & Metabolism and Nutrition Journal continue to feature highly in the Nutrition and Dietetics category occupying 3 of the top 7 spots.

• Journal of Biology (SJR = 2.42) is in the top 0.5% of all journals listed in SCImago, ranked 74th out of all 17,124 listed journals, placing it in a elite group of top-tier journals.

• For the second year running Molecular Pain (SJR = 0.520) tops the Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine category, which consists of 88 journals.

• Neural Development (SJR = 1.405) is another chart topper, leading the 12 journals in the Developmental Neuroscience category.

• Saline Systems (SJR = 0.100) also features highly in its field, placed 2nd of 100 journals in the Water Science and Technology category.
• BMC Plant Biology (SJR = 0.670) also continues to perform strikingly well, with an SJR better than 97% of journals in the Plant Science category.

Further details of all Biomed Central’s SCImago listings can be found on the SCImago website and a full introduction to the SCImago journal rankings as well as a comparison with Thomson Reuter’s Journal Citation Report has been previously posted on this blog.