Impact Metrics | NDSU Libraries

Introduction

A variety of metrics can be used to quantitatively evaluate academic productivity and the impact your work has in your field. This information can be used to demonstrate the influence and importance of your research to potential funders and to NDSU. Metrics can also be used to identify top researchers in a discipline and the best journals for publishing your research.

Important considerations to keep in mind:

There is no one perfect tool for measuring impact
Each tool uses its own measurement systems and may evaluate data in very different ways
Where you choose to gather your data can have a big impact on what your metrics look like
Diversify and utilize more than one metric
Research where your publications are indexed to get the most complete view possible of your work.

Many scholars are calling for more complex and qualitative methods for analyzing a researchers impact. For an alternative view of the evaluation of academic output see the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) initiated by the American Society for Cell Biology.

Subject librarians are available to meet with you individually, schedule workshops or present at departmental meetings if you would like more information about using impact metrics.

Researcher Metrics

Citation Counts

A simple count of the number of times a researcher’s publications have been cited can demonstrate productivity and impact.

Citation counts are not an absolute – how many are discovered will depend on the search parameters and databases consulted
Results also depend on the particular database subscription. Databases frequently cover different time periods even when they index the same journal which can affect citation counts

Find instructions below about how to generate citation counts for the following platforms:

EbscoHost Databases

Many of the databases available on the EBSCO platform offer the ability to search specifically for cited references – this can be a time consuming, but effective way for scholars to find citation information, especially when they are in the humanities or social sciences. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that all of a researcher’s publications will be indexed in a single database requiring multiple database searches.

From the search screen of an Ebsco database:

Click on Cited References in the top navigation (it may be under a More link). Search for the author (Last name, first initial, example: smith b) or article title - make sure you have the correct author Look for the phrase Times Cited in this Database. Add up the numbers to get a citation count for that database To view the articles citing the original article, check the box(es) next to the results that are cited in the database and click on the Find Citing Articles button.

Google Scholar Citations

With a Google account, it is possible to easily set up Google Citations to track and generate citation metrics. Google Scholar can be particularly helpful when it comes to finding citation metrics for books. However, relying on Google Scholar data can result in some issues that should be kept in mind:

Google metadata and citation information can be problematic: incomplete, lacking in authority controls, and easy to manipulate (see Further Reading below) Google indexes a wider range of publications than most subscription databases which may include citations from things like conference proceedings (good) or unscholarly sources like course syllabi (bad) It only indexes what is available online Difficult to disambiguate similar/identical author names

h-index

The h-index is a measure of how many papers a scholar has published which have reached a certain level of influence or impact. The more papers a scholar has published that have been cited and the more citations per paper, the higher the h-index. Notice that the h-index does not take into account the prestige of the journal in which the article was published.

How is it measured?

Two pieces of information are required: the total number of papers published and the number of times each paper has been cited. To calculate the h-index, determine how many h of a researcher’s publications have at least h citations each.

Example: you have published one paper and it has been cited one time, you have an h-index of one, if you have published two papers that have been cited at least twice, you have an h-index of two. Alternately, if you have published two papers and they have been cited at least ten times each your h-index is still two.

Using Web of Science (WoS) to find the h-index:

Navigate to the Web of Science database through the NDSU Libraries website
At the top left, click on Author Search
Enter last name, first initial (example: Smith B) and select the research domain to narrow your results and click Search
Click on the Record Sets tab to review author names and associated records to make sure you have the correct researcher
Check the box next to the desired records and click on View Records
Click on the Create Citation Report link on the right side of the page
The Citation Report begins with two graphs, Published Items in Each Year and Citations in Each Year. To the right of the graphs, you will find the h-index

Further Reading:

Hirsh, J. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Retrieved from: http://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full

Bar-Ilan, J. (2008). Which h-index? – A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics 74 (2), 257-271. doi: 10.1007/s11192-008-0216-y. Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-008-0216-y

Journal Metrics

Journal metrics are designed to measure the impact and influence of journals rather than individual researchers. Below is information about three common journal impact measures and how to find them.

Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics)

The Impact Factor measures the number of citations received by a journal.

How is it measured?

The Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations to a journal by the number of articles published in the journal. For example, the 2012 Impact Factor is calculated by taking the number of citations in 2012 to articles published in the same journal in 2010-2011 divided by the number of articles published by the journal in 2010-2011.

The equation looks like this:

How do I get the data?

Go to the Databases A to Z list and click on the link to Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics). You are given the option to search for a specific journal, view a list of all journals, or view a list of journals by subject, publisher, or country.

Journal Citation Reports video tutorials

The results page will display a table of data with the Impact Factor and other impact metrics. Click on the journal’s title to view more information about the journal and additional citation data. By default, a results list with multiple journals will display alphabetically by title. You can use the drop down menu at the top to sort by Impact Factor, or by another metric.

Impact Metrics Comparison Charts

Compare journal metrics

"comparison of journal metrics"

Adapted from: Gonzalez-Pereira, B., Guerro-Bote, V. and Moya-Anegon, F. The SJR indicator: A new indicator of journals' scientific prestige. Retrieved from: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0912/0912.4141.pdf

Compare Citation Data Sources

"comparison of citation data sources"

Adapted from: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/citationmetricsgeneralscopusgs