Like the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score use Thomson Reuters citation data to assess and track the influence of a journal in relation to other journals in the same discipline. It is a measure of the journal's total importance to the scientific community.
Eigenfactor Metrics are available only for JCR (Journal Citation Reports) years 1995 and later.
The Eigenfactor came out of the Metrics Eigenfactor Project in 2008, a bibliometric research project conducted by Professor Carl Bergstrom and his laboratory at University of Washington.
The Eigenfactor Score measures the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year.
Like the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor Score is essentially a ratio of number of citations to total number of articles. However, unlike the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor Score:
Eigenfactor scores are scaled so that the sum of the Eigenfactor scores of all journals listed in Thomson's Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is 100. In 2006, the journal Nature has the highest Eigenfactor score, with a score of 1.992. The top thousand journals, as ranked by Eigenfactor score, all have Eigenfactor scores above 0.01.
The Eigenfactor uses Thomson Reuters (ISI Web of Knowledge) citation data.
Motion charts graphically represent the numerical data.
Motion charts can be adjusted by article influence, Eigenfactor, total articles, total citations, and others. They can be changed into line charts or graphs.
An eigen is a particular or peculiar characteristic and is a prefix that can be applied to different scientific terms. For example, eigenvalue, eigenstate, etc.
Oxford English Dictionary (requires a subscription)
