Scholarly Communication

Bibliometrics or Traditional Metrics refers to the quantitative study of scholarly literature, mainly through the analysis of citations to authors' works and to journals. The metrics calculated from citation counts are used to determine the impact of an author or journal in a discipline. Examples of bibliometrics are citations counts for individual scholarly works,  h-indices for authors and journals, and the Journal Impact Factor. Commonly used resources that provide bibliometrics are:

• Web of Science - author metrics
• Journal Citation Reports - journal metrics
• Google Scholar - author and journal metrics

Altmetrics is the quantitative study of communications about scholarly works from measures other than citations. These measures may include article views and downloads, inclusion in citation managers,  references in social media such as Facebook, Twitter and/or blogs, Wikipedia, and the popular press. Numbers of communications indicate the impact of a scholarly work in a discipline. The benefits of altmetrics are 1) the ability to show the impact of a work earlier than the point of citation, and 2) to show activity in disciplines where less citation is done.See these links for more details about altmetrics.

• Altmetric Bookmarklet
• Metrics Toolkit, a rich resource containing definitions of metric and altmetrics that apply to authors, articles, journals, books and more. Filter by product type, type of impact, or discipline to find the best scholarly metrics for your work. The editorial board consists of librarians and a director at Altmetric.

Faculty frequently need to report two metrics related to articles for annual evaluation, promotion/tenure dossiers, and grant proposals:

• the number of citations to an article, and
• the author's h-index.

The h-index is calculated from the number of citations to the body of publications by one author over time. For example, an h-index of 10 means an author has 10 publications that have 10 citations or more.  The h-index may include citations to articles, books, and other publications depending on the discipline and the source of the h-index.

What is H-index and G-index?

Note: You will need to consult multiple citation databases because no one resource includes all of your articles or counts all citations to them. Your choice of databases will be determined by your subject area because some databases have better coverage in certain disciplines than others, as noted below.

Google Scholar. This free citation database is the most inclusive tool regarding types of publications and subject areas. The easiest way to gather all of the citations to your publications in Google Scholar is to create My Profile starting from the home page, which has the added benefit of making your publications easier for other researchers to find as it comes up first in a search for your name. 

• Subject coverage. Best coverage of humanities, and also strong in social sciences and STEM disciplines.
• Publication types. Journal articles (both peer-reviewed and not), books, book chapters, conference proceedings, whitepapers, and more.
• Limitations. 1) There is no guarantee that a citing publication is peer-reviewed - check this by looking at the citing publications; and 2) Google does not provide a list of journals and other publications from which it collects citations.
• Videos/Resources. Google Scholar Profile Basics (5.52 mins), Harzing's Publish or Perish (PoP), PoP Tutorial: Finding out your publications, citations and h-index.

Web of Science. This subscription resource is considered the "gold standard" in citation databases and tracks citations from ~12,800 titles starting in 1995. The most thorough way to find the total citations for an article is to do a Cited Reference Search (see below), which additionally identifies incomplete/erroneous citations. 

• Subject coverage. 65% Sciences, 23% Social Sciences, and 13% Arts and Humanities.
• Publication types. Peer-reviewed journal articles and some technical/trade journals.
• Limitations. 1) Weak coverage of humanities and social sciences; and 2) trade and practitioner journals are generally not included.
• Videos/Resources. Cited Reference Search (3.24 mins) from Web of Science Training

Journal websites. Many journal websites now provide a count of citations to an individual article. 

Calculating H-Index

Note: Multiple citation databases calculate the h-index for an author based on citations to articles, books, and more over a period of time. When selecting which h-index to use, consider which database covers the majority of your publications. Two things to remember about the h-indices from different databases:

• they are not interchangeable because the base citation counts are from differing sets of citing publications to differing sets of cited publications, and
• they are not cumulative because there is overlap between the citations counted in each database to one publication.

Google Scholar. This citation database calculates your h-indices based on all citations, the past 5 years of citations, and the number of publications with 10 or more citations (i10-index). Create My Profile starting from the home page in order to obtain your h-indices. 

• Subject coverage. Best coverage of humanities, and also strong in social sciences and STEM disciplines.
• Publication types. Journal articles (both peer-reviewed and not), books, book chapters, conference proceedings, whitepapers, and more.
• Limitations. 1) There is no guarantee that a citing publication is peer-reviewed - check this by looking at the citing publications; and 2) Google does not provide a list of journals and other publications from which it collects citations.
• Videos/Resources. Google Scholar Profile Basics (5.52 mins)

Web of Science. This subscription database calculates your h-index from the number of citations to your articles from the publications tracked by Web of Science from 1995 through the current year. 

• Subject coverage. 65% Sciences, 23% Social Sciences, and 13% Arts and Humanities.
• Publication types. Peer-reviewed journal articles and some technical/trade journals.
• Limitations. 1) Weak coverage of humanities and social sciences; and 2) trade and practitioner journals are generally not included.
• Videos/Resources.  Getting a Researcher's H-Index from Web of Science (1:35 mins)

Journal metrics represent the importance of a journal in a discipline based on citations to the journal as a whole over a period of time. The use of journal metrics to evaluate faculty performance has pros and cons, especially depending on your discipline. Note the Subject Coverage in the boxes below.

Major journal metrics currently available, along with their definitions, are:

• Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
• Journal Quartiles and JIF Percentiles from JCR  
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) from the SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SCImago)
• Journal h-index from SCImago
• Journal h-indices from Google Scholar

Remember that journal metrics are based on differing citation counts and may be calculated differently from one resource to the next. This means, for example, that the journal h-indices from Google Scholar and SCImago are not interchangeable or comparable. See the rest of this page for details on how to find the various journal metrics.

Faculty frequently need to report two metrics related to books for annual evaluation, promotion/tenure dossiers, and grant proposals:

• the number of citations to a book/book chapter, and
• the author's h-index.

The h-index is calculated from the number of citations to the body of publications by one author over time. For example, an h-index of 10 means an author has 10 publications that have 10 citations or more.  The h-index may include citations to articles, books, and other publications depending on the discipline and the source of the h index. 

You may need to consult multiple citation databases because no one resource includes all of your books/book chapters or counts all citations to them. Your choice of databases will be determined by your subject area and the number of books included in a database.

Google Scholar. This citation database includes citations to your books, book chapters, articles, and more. It's the most inclusive tool regarding types of publications and subject areas. The easiest way to gather all of the citations to your publications in GS is to create My Profile starting from the home page. The profile has the added benefit of making your publications easier for other researchers to find as it comes up first in a search for your name. 

• Subject coverage. Best coverage of humanities, and also strong in social sciences and STEM disciplines.
• Publication types. Journal articles (both peer-reviewed and not), books, book chapters, conference proceedings, whitepapers, and more.
• Limitations. 1) There is no guarantee that a citing publication is peer-reviewed - check this by looking at the citing publications; and 2) Google does not provide a list of journals and other publications from which it collects citations.
• Videos/Resources. Google Scholar Profile Basics (5.52 mins), Harzing's Publish or Perish (PoP), PoP Tutorial: Finding out your publications, citations and h-index.

Web of Science. This subscription resource is considered the "gold standard" in citation databases. It includes 90,000 individual book titles, mostly from series. The most thorough way to find the total citations for a book is to do a Cited Reference Search (3.24 minute video), which additionally identifies incomplete/erroneous citations. The database is strongest in the science disciplines.

• Subject coverage. 65% Sciences, 23% Social Sciences, and 13% Arts and Humanities.
• Publication types. Peer-reviewed journal articles, some technical/trade journals, and book series.
• Limitations. 1) Weak coverage of humanities and social sciences; and 2) in general, book chapters are not included as separate, searchable items.
• Videos/Resources.  Cited Reference Search (3.24 mins) from Web of Science Training.

Calculating H-Index

Multiple citation databases calculate the h-index for an author based on citations to books, book chapters, articles, and more over a period of time.  When selecting which h-index to use, consider which database covers the majority of your publications. Two things to remember about the h-indices from different databases:

• they are not interchangeable because the base citation counts are from differing sets of citing publications to differing sets of cited publications, and
• they are not cumulative because there is overlap between the citations to one publication.

Google Scholar. This citation database calculates your h-index for all citations and from the past 5 years, plus your i10-index, which is the number of publications with 10 or more citations.  The h-indices are based on citations to your publications, including books and book chapters. Create My Profile starting from the home page in order to obtain your h-indices. 

• Subject coverage. Best coverage of humanities, and also strong in social sciences and STEM disciplines.
• Publication types. Journal articles (both peer-reviewed and not), books, book chapters, conference proceedings, whitepapers, and more.
• Limitations. 1) There is no guarantee that a citing publication is peer-reviewed - check this by looking at the citing publications; and 2) a limited number of book chapters appear in Google Scholar as separate items.
• Videos/Resources. Google Scholar Profile Basics (5.52 mins)

Web of Science. This subscription database calculates your h-index from the number of citations to your books, book chapters, articles and more from the publications tracked by Web of Science from 1995 through the current year. 

• Subject coverage. 65% Sciences, 23% Social Sciences, and 13% Arts and Humanities.
• Publication types. Peer-reviewed journal articles, some technical/trade journals, and book series.
• Limitations. 1) Weak coverage of humanities and social sciences; and 2) there are relatively fewer book chapters that are included as separate, searchable items.
• Videos/Resources.  Getting a Researcher's H-Index from Web of Science (1:35 mins)

While there is not a standard recognizable metric for presentations, you can use the following information to describe its impact.

• Prestige of the conference hosts: Is it sponsored by a prominent organization in your field?
• Attendance: Is it attended by international, national, or regional scholars in your field?
• Number of presentation attendees: Did your personal presentation have a large audience? Was it a keynote or invited session?
• Conference proceedings: Are the proceedings published? Does your paper have a DOI?
  • Can you obtain the number of views/downloads? Citations?
• Is the presentation available online?
  • Can you obtain the number of views/downloads? Citations?
• Did this presentation lead to other institutions implementing your processes or any outside collaborations?
• Was the presentation mentioned in any social media channels, such as twitter or facebook?