Computers & Security: Journal Metrics & Impact

Computers & Security (ISSN 0167-4048, E-ISSN 1872-6208) is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier covering information assurance and cybersecurity. Journal metrics include an OpenAlex-verified 2-year mean citedness of 11.90 and an h-index of 182 across 9,951 cataloged works. In alignment with DORA and CoARA guidance, journal-level citation metrics should not be used as evaluative proxies for individual article quality or scientific contribution.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 8 Nov 2026

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Worked examples

Is an instance

OpenAlex records an h-index of 182 and a 2-year mean citedness of 11.90 for Computers & Security across 9,951 indexed research works.

Is an instance

A research assessment committee evaluates a cybersecurity faculty candidate based on the specific impact of their article rather than the impact factor of Computers & Security, following DORA guidelines.

Quick answer: Computers & Security (ISSN 0167-4048; E-ISSN 1872-6208) is a leading peer-reviewed journal published by Elsevier covering information assurance and cybersecurity. According to verified open bibliometric data from OpenAlex, the journal holds a 2-year mean citedness of 11.90, an overall h-index of 182, and more than 209,800 lifetime citations across 9,951 cataloged works. Official proprietary figures for the Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Elsevier CiteScore are released annually through Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and Scopus; because those platforms require authenticated institutional access, authors should verify annual score releases directly through their institutional library portal.

What the Metric Represents

The Journal Impact Factor measures the frequency with which the average article in a scholarly journal is cited within a given annual cycle. For Computers & Security, this metric reflects how research papers published during the preceding two calendar years were cited by Web of Science indexed journals during the measurement year.

Alongside proprietary JIF figures, the open scholarly corpus OpenAlex tracks an analogous 2-year citation velocity: its 2-year mean citedness ratio of 11.90 demonstrates consistent, high citation volume across software security, cryptography, intrusion detection, and digital forensics. With 8,528 DOI records registered in Crossref and an h-index of 182, the journal ranks among the foundational publications in computing security.

How the Impact Factor Is Calculated

The standard 2-year Journal Impact Factor calculation follows a precise mathematical ratio:

JIF (Year X) = (Citations in Year X to items published in Year X-1 and Year X-2) / (Total citable items published in Year X-1 and Year X-2)

In this equation:

Numerator: Citations recorded across all indexed publications during Year X directed at articles, reviews, or proceedings published by Computers & Security in the two preceding years.
Denominator: The count of “citable items” (primarily peer-reviewed research articles and substantive review papers) published by the journal in those same two years, excluding editor notes, corrections, and general news announcements.

Complementary Metrics and Quartile Context

A single citation ratio provides only a partial perspective on scholarly influence. Comprehensive journal evaluation incorporates multi-metric context:

2-Year Mean Citedness: OpenAlex tracks an average of 11.90 citations per recently published item, offering an openly auditable baseline for citation velocity.
h-index: The journal’s h-index of 182 indicates that at least 182 papers in Computers & Security have each received 182 or more citations.
Persistent Identifiers: Every published paper receives a dedicated Crossref DOI, ensuring permanent traceability and automated indexing across global metadata networks.
Alternative Metrics: Tracking article-level attention through altmetrics captures policy citations, open-source vulnerability references, standards body acknowledgments, and community discourse that traditional citation windows omit.

Responsible Assessment and Methodological Cautions

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) explicitly advise academic institutions, tenure committees, and funding panels against using journal-level metrics as a proxy for the quality of individual research articles or the contributions of individual scientists.

Citation rates within cybersecurity and computer science exhibit pronounced skewness: a minority of landmark papers (such as standardized benchmark datasets or novel cryptanalytic attacks) generate an outsized proportion of citations, whereas methodologically sound empirical studies may accumulate citations over extended multi-year horizons. Researchers evaluating publications should examine the rigour, reproducibility, and practical impact of the specific article rather than relying on journal impact metrics.

Sources

OpenAlex. Source Record S12529635: Computers & Security (ISSN 0167-4048, 1872-6208). https://api.openalex.org/sources?search=Computers%20%26%20Security (read 2026-11-08).
Crossref. Journal Metadata Record for ISSN 0167-4048: Computers & Security. https://api.crossref.org/journals/0167-4048 (read 2026-11-08).
Clarivate. Journal Citation Reports Methodology and Reference Guide. Clarivate Analytics (read 2026-11-08).
Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: Recommendations for Research Assessment. https://sfdora.org/ (read 2026-11-08).

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