CiteScore: A cite for sore eyes, or a valuable, transparent metric?

To date, the journal impact factor (JIF), owned by Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate Analytics), has been the dominant metric in scholarly publishing. Hated or loved, the JIF dominated academic publishing for the better part of six decades. However, a rise in the ranks of unscholarly journals, academic corruption and fraud has also seen the accompaniment of a parallel universe of competing metrics, some of which might also be predatory, misleading, or fraudulent, while others yet may in fact be valid. On December 8, 2016, Elsevier B.V. launched a direct competing metric to the JIF, CiteScore (CS). This short communication explores the similarities and differences between JIF and CS. It also explores what this seismic shift in metrics culture might imply for journal readership and authorship.