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Research Impact: Common Metrics

Article-level

Measures reflecting the reach of an individual item, such as a journal article

  Citation count: the number of times your article was cited by other articles in the database. Varies by database.

    Where it can be found:

      - Web of Science

Times Cited: total number of times the article has been cited in publications indexed by WOS Core Collection

      - Google Scholar

Cited By: total number of times the article has been cited

Also shows WOS citation count

      - Dimensions

Total Citations: total number of times the article has been cited in publications indexed by Dimensions

      - Scopus

Citations: total number of times the article has been cited in publications indexed by Scopus

      - iCite (for PubMed)

Total Citations: total number of times the article has been cited in publications indexed by PubMed     

Need to enter PubMed identifiers (PMIDs) for the publications. PMIDs can be found by searching PubMed.

 

  Normalized citation counts: the number of times your article was cited by other articles in the database, relative to other articles: in the field, of similar age, funded by the same organization, etc. Varies by database. A metric > 1.0 indicates the articles citation performance is above average.

    Where they can be found:

    - Dimensions

Field Citation Ratio (FCR): citation performance of an article relative to similarly-aged articles indexed by Dimensions in the subject area.

Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): citation performance of an article relative to NIH-funded articles indexed by Dimensions in the subject area. 

    - Scopus

Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI): citation performance of an article relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type, and publication year.

    - Web of Science

Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI): citation performance of an article indexed by Web of Science relative to the expected count for a document of the same type, from the same category, and published in the same year. (Requires InCites subscription which UF does not have)

    - iCite

NIH Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): a citation-based measure of scientific influence of one or more articles, normalized to the cites/year received by NIH-funded papers in same field and year. An RCR of 1.0 has same number of cites/yr as average NIH-funded paper; an RCR of 2.0 has twice as many as average.

 

  Alternative Metrics: count things such as number of times your article was tweeted about or covered in a news source or blog. They differ from the traditional metrics in a couple of ways: 1) they give more immediate feedback regarding the interest in an article; and 2) by quantifying its reach via popular news outlets and social media, they can reflect the impact the article is having beyond the academy. An article that hasn’t been out long enough to have received a high citation count might be getting a lot of attention in the popular press. Alternative metrics capture this information, giving you another way to document your impact.

    Where they can be found:

     - Altmetric Explorer

      - Dimensions

      - PIVOT

 

Author-level

Measures reflecting a researcher’s body of work

  H-index: the highest number of articles you have published that have at least that number of citations

      E.g., an H-index of 12 means you have 12 articles which have each been cited at least 12 times

      Database specific

    Where it can be found:

      - Scopus

      - Web of Science

      - Google Scholar      

  

  Weighted NIH Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): the sum of RCRs for articles in a group, which weights the article count by their influence relative to NIH-funded papers. A Weighted RCR > the total number of publications indicates an influential set of articles.

    Where it can be found:

      - iCite

      Need to enter PubMed identifiers (PMIDs) for all of the author's publications. PMIDs can be found by doing an author search in PubMed.

 

 


 

Journal-level

Speaks to the impact of the journal on the scholarly community

  Journal Impact Factor (JIF, IF): a measure of the average number of citations to articles published in that journal over a specified time period. A proxy for the relative importance of a journal

    Where it can be found:

      - InCites Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Responsible Use of Metrics

Articles and resources

Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics

- Ten principles to guide research evaluation

The Metric Tide

- Twenty recommendations to guide UK research

Five arguments to persuade HE leaders to evaluate research responsibly

- International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) Research Evaluation Working Group

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