Methodology · Tutoeris
How we calculate the Tutoeris Impact Quartile
A transparent explanation of what our journal metric measures, what data it is built on and how to read each level. It is an independent Tutoeris metric, computed on open data; it is not the Scopus quartile.
What it is (and what it is not)
The Tutoeris Impact Quartile ranks the journals within a field by how much their articles are cited and groups them into four levels (Q1 highest, Q4 lowest). It helps orient where to publish; it does not replace your advisor's judgment or your university's policy.
It is not the Scopus SJR quartile, a proprietary product computed once a year. Ours is built on OpenAlex open data, recalculated every month, and covers thousands of journals Scopus does not classify. It matches Scopus in most cases, but it is an independent metric, not a copy.
What data it is calculated on
We use the open OpenAlex catalog (CC0 license), with over 229,000 journals — many Latin American and open-access ones that are absent from traditional indexes. Each month we take the most recent snapshot, so the metric reflects the journal's current activity.
The formula, component by component
We combine four signals. Before combining them, each is converted into a percentile within its own field, so an education journal is compared with education journals and not with medical ones.
Índice = 0.40 · recent citations per article
+ 0.30 · 2-year impact factor
+ 0.10 · citations per article (historical)
+ 0.20 · age-adjusted H-index | Signal | What it measures | Why it is included |
|---|---|---|
| Recent citations per article (40%) | Citations in the last 3 years ÷ articles published in those years. | The strongest, most current signal. Dividing by article count avoids rewarding a journal just for publishing a lot. |
| 2-year impact factor (30%) | Average citations per article over a 2-year window. | Complements the recent signal with the standard measure academia already knows. |
| Historical citations per article (10%) | Total citations ÷ total articles over the journal's lifetime. | Adds long-term track record, with little weight so it does not only reward old journals. |
| Age-adjusted H-index (20%) | H-index ÷ years of the journal's life. | Reflects consistency and corrects the advantage of older journals. |
We tested other signals and dropped them for adding noise or bias: the citation trend (noisy), the "core journal" flag (no discriminating power) and raw article count (measures size, not quality). Open access, SciELO and the publication charge (APC) do not enter the score — they would penalize open and regional journals — and are used only as search filters.
How quartiles are assigned
Within each field we sort journals by their index and split them into four equal groups:
- Q1The top 25% of the field. Highest-impact journals.
- Q2From 50% to 75%. High-medium impact.
- Q3From 25% to 50%. Medium-low impact.
- Q4The bottom 25%. Lower relative impact.
We also offer a three-level view (high, medium, low), more robust than the four quartiles because the Q2–Q3 boundary is very thin. When a journal lands right on a boundary, we flag it with "near the cutoff".
Which journals get a quartile and which do not
The metric applies only to live journals with enough activity. We assign no quartile when the journal has not published in the last 3 years ("no recent activity") or when OpenAlex assigns it no field. Of the 229,145 journals in the catalog, about 108,300 are classifiable; the rest are left without a quartile by design: we prefer to say "not enough data" rather than give an unreliable quartile.
How close it is to the Scopus quartile
Compared with the official Scopus quartile in the fields where both exist, our metric matches exactly in about 2 of every 3 journals, and in around 95% it is at most one quartile away (correlation of 0.85 to 0.89). The differences come from Scopus being static and closed-universe, while ours is dynamic and open-coverage. To be clear: it is not identical to Scopus and does not claim to be.
Transparency
The metric is built on OpenAlex open data that anyone can download and reproduce. There is no black box.
An honest limitation: field assignment depends on OpenAlex's topic classification, which occasionally mislabels a journal. In those cases its quartile can be distorted. It is something we keep improving.
Rights, license and attribution
The raw data comes from OpenAlex and is public domain (CC0). Our contribution — the Tutoeris Impact Quartile (the computed values: score, quartile and level) together with the selection, field classification and compilation — is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) license: you may cite and share it with attribution, but not use it commercially without permission. The code, design and these texts are © Tutoeris, all rights reserved. "Tutoeris Impact Quartile" is a proprietary name; it must not be used for indexes not produced by Tutoeris.
Suggested citation: Barrera, M. D. (2026). Tutoeris Impact Quartile [dataset]. Tutoeris. https://tutoeris.co/recursos/revistas/ — with data from OpenAlex (CC0). · Full terms · Commercial permissions: marcos@tutoeris.co
Data: OpenAlex (CC0), monthly snapshot. Methodology of the Tutoeris journal impact metric.