International Journal of Art Therapy achieves new milestone
Our journal, the International Journal of Art Therapy, has reached a significant achievement. For the first time, the journal has an impact factor, marking a transition from an emerging to an established peer reviewed journal.
What is the impact factor?
The impact factor is widely used as a tool for estimating and grading academic success. It measures the frequency with which the ‘average article’ in a journal has been cited.
In the world of library science, academic journals, and scholarly research, a good impact factor is very important. Impact factors are used to measure the importance of a journal.
The higher the impact factor, the more highly ranked the journal. It is one tool you can use to compare journals in a subject category.
Why it’s important for art therapy
Increasing the trust in the quality of our art therapy literature and research is one of the ways we can increase trust and recognition of our profession.
Increasing trust and understanding means we can more effectively make the case for the value of art therapy to people’s wellbeing, health and lives. Making a more effective case for art therapy funding, services and research means we can positively impact the lives of our service users, as well as reaching a wider audience through the journal.
What is a good impact factor?
The journal’s first impact factor is 2.7. In general, an impact factor of 3 is good, and the average score is less than 1.
An impact factor of 10 or higher is considered remarkable, although unreachable in many categories. In 2020 less than 4% of the journals had an impact factor of 10 or higher.
Alex McDonald, Editor-in-Chief of the journal, said:
This is such good news! 2.7 is unexpectedly high for our journal’s first ever impact factor and has now ranked art therapy literature alongside well established and more heavily funded professions. Having such a good impact factor can help to bring attention and recognition to the profession and support art therapists and our associations to make the case for the value of art therapy on behalf of the infants, children, young people, adults and older adults we work with.
Alex McDonald, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Art Therapy
Thank you to everyone who has contributed towards growing the journal including our readers, authors, peer reviewers, advisors, editors, publishers, and cover artists.
Equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging
The editorial board value equality, diversity and belonging. They are continuing their ongoing work towards making the journal more accessible and inclusive through the upcoming public consultation on actions for change, being held on 25 January 2024.
All our readers, authors and reviewers are very welcome to join and share their thoughts and ideas.