Author Level Metrics
The author level metrics reflect the performance and impact of a researcher by assessing a researcher’s work and publications. They are usually accompanied with an author profile of scholars listing their research outputs.
In this guide, the following author level metrics will be introduced:
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Times Cited
Similar to the “Times Cited” metric at the article level, the “Times Cited” metric at author level refers to the number of citations received by a particular author or researcher. Please also be cautious that the number may vary across databases since the coverages of databases are different and it would affect the calculation result. The most commonly used databases for retrieving the metric are Web of Science and Scopus.
H-index
The Hirsch index, commonly known as h-index, is an index measuring both the productivity and impact of an author or researcher. It quantifies a researcher’s scientific output by indicating the number of articles (h) published by an author have been cited for at least how many (h) times. For example, if a researcher has an h-index of 10, it means he/she has 10 papers indexed in a particular database that have each been cited at least 10 times.
Same as the Times Cited metric, it varies across databases owing to the differences in coverage and date ranges being used. In addition, the h-index value has to be updated upon each retrieval as the total number of publications of a researcher and citations received change from time to time.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
Pros and Cons
The h-index is easy to use and visualize. The combination of productivity and impact calculated in the index is easy to understand. The exclusion of lower down papers in h-index is also robust to poor data.
However, there are also limitations such as insensitivity to actual number of citations and subject fields. It is also believed to be biased towards researchers who are more experienced and productive, or already in their mid and late career since the h-index includes all publications produced by a researcher and their citations received regardless of time period.
Source: Mingers , J., & Leydesdorff , L. (2015). A review of theory and practice in scientometrics . European Journal of Operational
Research, 246(1), 1 19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2015.04.002
Retrieving Times Cited and h-index on Scopus
Step 1:
Go to Scopus via HKUL. Click on “Author” and fill in the name of the researcher. Then, click on “Search”.
Step 2:
Click on the name of the researcher in the result list.
Step 3:
On the researcher’s profile, the number of times cited and the h-index can be found on the left.
Retrieving Times Cited and h-index on Web of Science
Step 1:
Go to Web of Science via HKUL.
Step 2:
Click on “author” and fill in the information of the researcher. You may click on the name on the suggested list prompted up while typing and click “Search”. You will be directed to the profile page of the author selected.
The number of times cited and the h-index will be displayed in the author profile as below:
Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) at author level
Similar to the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) at the article level, it compares the times cited of an author’s publications with the average number of citations received by all other similar publications in a database. It takes into account the differences in research behaviour across disciplines.
The meaning of the FWCI score for a researcher shall be the same as the FWCI score at the output level, which a FWCI of 1 refers to the global average. Please refer to the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) at the article level for detailed explanations.
Source: What is Field weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)? (Sep 2021)
Retrieving FWCI at author level from Scopus to SciVal
Step 1:
On the researcher profile page on Scopus, click on “Export to SciVal”.
Step 2:
Login to SciVal with your personal Scopus account. The researcher’s information, including the FWCI for the author, will be displayed on SciVal.
% of Documents in Top 1% and 10% at author level
When the % of Documents in Top 1% and 10% is calculated at the author level, it expresses the percentage of papers published by a certain author in the top 1% and 10% based on citations by category, year, and document type. Details of the metric could be referred to % of Documents in Top 1% and 10% at article level.
Source: Clarivate InCites Help, Impact Indicators (Sep 2021)
Retrieving % of Documents in Top 1% and 10% at author level on InCites
Step 1:
Access InCites via HKUL. Login to InCites with your registered personal account.
Step 2:
After logging in, click on “Analyze” to open a drop-down list and select “Researchers”.
Step 3:
Input the names in the search box, choose “abbreviated name” if you are using abbreviation. You may also apply filters to optimize your search results. Then, Click ”Add indicator” on the right hand side and tick “% Documents in Top 1%” and “% Documents in Top 10%”. Click “apply” after selecting the indicators.
Highly Cited Researchers
In recognizing and honouring the world’s top researchers who demonstrated significant influence to their fields by production of multiple highly-cited papers ranked in top 1% in the Web of Science database, Clarivate announces and publishes a list of Highly Cited Researchers annually.
Researchers who are awarded would be listed on the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher website, and they will also have their Web of Science author profiles marked as “Highly Cited”.
Source: Highly Cited Researchers, powered by Web of Science (Nov 2023)