As is widely used, published scientific journals are assessed each year in terms relating to their “perceived value” to readers and authors. There are two metrics that are widely referenced: the “Impact Factor” (IF) and the newer “Full Text Views/Downloads”.
IF is the ratio of the number of citations each year to the number of papers published within the two or five consecutive preceding years. This measure of the “value” of a journal can also be used to rank a given journal within the universe of similar journals. With great appreciation to the PDJ authors, Editors and Reviewers I am pleased to report that the IFs for Powder Diffraction are up for the fourth year in a row reaching new highs of 2.54 and 1.40. Comparing PDJ's IF to those of the 32 journals in the Materials Science, Characterization & Testing category PDJ ranks 20 out of 32.
A newer and complimentary metric is the Number of Full Text Views or Downloads. Clearly, readers gain considerable value from viewing and/or downloading manuscripts. This metric has yet to be “normalized” to the number of manuscripts published per year so that comparison with other journals of related subject matter cannot yet be made. The growth in Views and/or Downloads is increasing rapidly, likely due to increasing internet access and use of Open Access. For example, during the first 6 months of 2021 vs. the same period in 2020, the number of PDJ online text views/downloads approximately doubled compared with the same 6 months in 2020. In the first 6 months of 2021, there were ~61 000 full text downloads of manuscripts published in PDJ. Cambridge University Press (CUP) reports that from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, there were approximately 61 000 full text downloads from PDJ. The largest numbers (~25 000) were downloaded by readers within the United States. Other countries heavily using the web to access PDJ, listed in a decreasing number of downloads in the last year, were China, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, India, Japan, South Korea, France, and Canada.
