LibGuides: Scholarly Communications: Publication Metrics

Intergrate Metrics into Your Narrative

Journal Impact Factor

The impact factor evaluates a journal's importance by measuring how often its articles are cited over the past two years. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations by the number of articles published. This metric applies only to journals, not individual articles or researchers, and should be used to compare journals within the same subject area.

Cabells Business Set
Available for business journals, this directory includes information on the journals' acceptance rates, publication guidelines, number of copies required, types of review processes, number of internal and external reviewers, time required for review, and availability of reviewers' comments.
CWTS Journal Indicators
Leiden University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) manages a free database for bibliometric indicators on scientific journals.
Eigenfactor
A free and searchable database, Eigenfactor covers the natural and social sciences. A journal's Eigenfactor score is our measure of the journal's total importance to the scientific community. The website includes several quick top ten lists in science, social science, university theses, newspapers, and magazines.
Google Scholar Metrics
Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications, to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research.

Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new window
Journal Citation Reports provides ranking for journals in the areas of science, technology, and social sciences.

SCImago Journal Rank
A public portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained Elsevier's Scopus® database.
The Retraction Watch Database
Database of retracted papers and conference abstracts

Citation Analysis

Citation analysis measures the academic impact of an article or author by counting how often their work is cited by others. Various tools are available to explore citation metrics. However, traditional citation-based metrics have limitations:

Citations take time to accumulate, making short-term impact assessment difficult.
They are more relevant for some disciplines (e.g., STEM) than others.
Citations are just one measure of impact and do not account for other forms of engagement with research.

Learn how open access may increase citation of research.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a free tool for citation analysis, featuring a "Cited by" link under each record. However, its reliability can vary. It might not cover all scholarly articles, potentially resulting in a lower citation count. Conversely, it may include citations from sources like PowerPoint presentations and Word documents, which could inflate the count.

Elsevier E-journals This link opens in a new window
To perform citation analysis using ScienceDirect, start by accessing the platform through the provided link above. Use the Advanced Search feature to locate an article. Once you have selected the desired article from the search results, scroll down to the "Cited By" section. This section will list articles that have cited the selected work.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science (WoS) provides researchers with the ability to generate a citation report, which includes metrics such as the number of documents, times cited, and h-index. To use this feature, start from the landing page and select the "Researchers" tab. Then, search for the author's name and choose the appropriate record, or click "View as combined record" if there are duplicate author records. Ensure that the documents are correctly associated with the author before running the citation report. It's important to note that WoS metrics are based solely on articles in journals indexed by Web of Science and do not include citations to books, chapters, patents, or other sources.

Alternative Metrics

Altmetrics measure the social and public impact of research, complementing traditional citation-based metrics by tracking web and social media interactions. Examples include:

Usage: Downloads, views, clicks
Captures: Bookmarks, favorites
Mentions: References on blogs, Wikipedia, news sites
Social Media: Shares on platforms like Facebook and Twitter

Why use altmetrics?

Assess immediate research impact
Provide a broader impact picture
Measure diverse scholarship types
Offer context on who engages with your research

Limitations of altmetrics:

Measure popularity, not quality
Still a new trend with varied tools and data sources

Altmetric
A commerical provider of altmetric data offers free altmetric browser tools to view the online shares and mentions of an article.
Impactstory Profiles
Impactstory is a free, open-source website that uses ORCID and Scopus to showcase an author's impact. Available at no cost to users with an X (Twitter) account.
Paperbuzz
To create an altmetric report using Paperbuzz, search for an article using its DOI, only available for works published after 2017. Authors can also set up alerts to be notified whenever their work is mentioned online.
Plum Analytics (PlumX)
If your works are archived in Digital Commons @ LMU & LLS, you can access PlumX Metrics. Each record features a PlumX widget that displays the article's usage, captures, mentions, social media interactions, and citations.