Research Impact

Author Level Metrics

 

The author level metrics reflect the productivity and impact of a researcher by assessing a researcher’s publications. They are usually accompanied with profiles of scholars listing their research outputs. The most common metrics are number of publications, number of citations, and h-index.

These indicators are potentially used for various purposes, for instance:

• appointment, promotion and tenure consideration in faculties, and
• awarding of research grants (as indicators of recent scientific performance or track record of the investigators).

To demonstrate research impact beyond citations, consider writing a narrative CV which emphasizes quality over quantity, and include narratives about the broader impact beyond academia.

Reference

• Győrffy, B., Herman, P., & Szabó, I. (2020). Research funding: past performance is a stronger predictor of future scientific output than reviewer scores. Journal of Informetrics, 14(3), 101050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2020.101050
• OECD. (2010). Performance-based Funding for Public Research in Tertiary Education Institutions: Workshop Proceedings. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264094611-en

Times Cited

Times cited is the total number of citations received by the author's publications indexed by a certain database.

Popular databases include Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus. While they have different criteria in journal evaluation and selection, the coverage in the databases are different. Thus, the numbers of publications and citations for the same author may be different among the databases.

Setting-up and managing author profiles can help to clearly reflect an author's previous publications and demonstrate research productivity and impact. For more details on popular author profiles, check the Author Profile LibGuide

Use and limitations

• It is straight forward and easy to understand.

• Citations are not a direct measure of quality.
• Numbers of citations are also impacted by the variable publication volumes of different disciplines. So, citations should not be used to compare researchers in different fields.

Access

Popular platforms include:

• Scopus
  
  
  
  
• Web of Science
  
  

Reference

• Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). (2024). Guidance on the responsible use of quantitative indicators in research assessment. DORA. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10979644
• 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

   

h-index

The h-index for an individual author is defined as the number of his/her papers that have been cited at least h times. So h represents the top h papers, all of which have at least h citations. For example, an author with a h-index of 10 has ten papers, each with at least ten citations.

Use and limitations

• It combines both productivity and citation impact in a single measure that is easily understood and intuitive.
• It is robust to poor data since it ignores the lower down papers where the problems usually occur.
  

• It is insensitive to the actual numbers of citations received by the papers. E.g., two researchers with the same h-index could have dramatically different actual numbers of citations.
• It does not discriminate well as it only employs integer values. Many researchers may share the same value.
• It provides no contextual information, e.g., career stage, research area, or the nature of the author’s contributions to each paper.

Access

Popular platforms include:

• Scopus
  
  
  
  
• Web of Science
  
  

Reference

• Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). (2024). Guidance on the responsible use of quantitative indicators in research assessment. DORA. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10979644
• 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

   

Other relevant metrics

A number of calculations (or awards and rankings) are based on citation counts, h-index, and other compound criteria. These indicators would inherit the pros and cons of the criteria used. Here are some examples.