Bibliometric indicators : Quartiles / Terciles / Deciles

The Quartiles, Terciles and Deciles, each one is an bibliometric indicator that has the function of evaluating the importance of a journal within the total number of journals in its area, seeing its position in relation to said journals.

Now how to know if a scientific journal belongs to Quartiles (Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4), Terciles (T1, T2 and T3) and Deciles (D1, D2, D3.....). 

Step 1: Open JCR data base and search a scientific journal. Once the scientific journal is located in JCR data base, click on its title to obtain all the detailed data of the scientific journal.

Step 2: In the category section, it can be seen to which categories the scientific journal belongs. It can be more than one category. 

What are Quartiles?

By dividing a list of journals ordered by impact index into 4 equal parts, each of these parts will be a quartile.

Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4

What are Terciles? 

By dividing a list of journals ordered by impact index into 3 equal parts, each of these parts will be a tercile.

T1, T2 and T3

What are the Deciles?

When dividing a list of journals ordered by impact index into 10 equal parts, each of these parts will be a decile.

D1, D2, D3 ....so on. 

Step 3: To know the position and be able to calculate the quartiles, terciles and deciles that the journal occupies in each of the mentioned categories, you need to scroll down to the Rank by Journal Impact Factor.

Calculation for Quartiles

We will carry out the manual calculation by observing the total number of scientific journals in a category and dividing it by four to later see where the scientific journal is located in that category.

     Example: 74 total journals / 4 = 18.5 (each quartiles will have this number of journals).

     This journal is at 19th position out of 74 total journals, so it is in the 2nd quartiles (Q2).

Calculation for Terciles

We will carry out the manual calculation by observing the total number of scientific journals in a category and dividing it by three to later see where the scientific journal is located in that category.

     Example: 74 total journals / 3= 24.7 (each tercile will have this number of journals).

     This journal is at 19th position out of 74 total journals, so it is in the 1st terciles (T1).

Calculation for Deciles

We will carry out the manual calculation by observing the total number of scientific journals in a category and dividing it by ten to later see where the scientific journal is located in that category.

     Example: 74 total journals /10= 7.4 (each decile will have this number of journals).

     This journal is at 19th position out of 74 total journals, so it is in the 3rd decile (D3).

This scientific journal possesses Q2, T1 & D3.