Bibliometrics

What are Research metrics?

Citation-based research metrics are quantitative tools that can be used to measure and evaluate the quality and impact of scholarly work. Metrics can be used at the journal, article, and researcher level and include bibliometrics like citation counts and journal impact factors. However, research metrics only tell part of a story and should always be supplemented with qualitative peer review and a personal statement demonstrating impact and influence.

Flinders University Library has access to the following databases to help with analysing your citation-based metrics:

• Scopus
• Web of Science
• Incites
• Google Scholar (open to everyone)
• Journal citation reports

Keep in mind:

The citation information in these databases is based only on the information contained in those databases. In other words, a citation count in Web of Science indicates how many times that item was cited by other outputs that are also in Web of Science. Citation metrics for individual outputs may be different based on which database you use.

To obtain the most complete picture of an output’s influence, always gather metrics from a variety of sources.

How to use citation metrics effectively

This short video (6:15), created by Web of Science, is an introduction to citation behaviour.

Research metrics at Flinders

The Library provides a range of research metric resources that can help assess your research quality and impact.

Why are research metrics important to you as a researcher?

• To ensure that you are publishing in a quality journal
• To help you find the relative ranking of a journal within a particular field
• To identify how many times your output has been cited
• To track when and where your outputs have been cited
• To discover who else is researching in your field, who are the leaders, and where they are publishing
• To benchmark yourself against other researchers
• To aid you in assessing your readiness to apply for grants or promotion

Please log in with your FAN and password to access a range of resources including 'How-To' guides to gather your metrics from Incites and Scopus.

But first! Your online academic profile!

The first important step in finding out your bibliometric impact is to clean up your online academic profile.

Your online academic profile is the combination of your research output and professional activity. Without it, it’s almost impossible to measure and demonstrate your impact. Do it now, do it early and it will save you time when it comes to that next grant application or promotion round.

Creating and maintaining your online academic profile will:

• Help the academic community and beyond connect with and cite your work
• Increase your ability to track and measure your impact across multiple platforms
• Ensure that your work and its impact is correctly connected and traceable to you
• Help you find, and be found by, new collaborators and sources of funding 

Researcher Publication Profile Management 

Ensuring your online research profiles aggregate your publications together will give you an accurate and timely overview of your citation impact. There are three main online researcher IDs used in the research ecosystem. These are Scopus, Web of Science and ORCiD (Online Researcher and Contributor ID). ORCiD links your publication profiles together and is a unique key that enables systems to identify you as the author of your works across the scholarly landscape.  

ResearchNow, Flinders University’s research management system, uses Scopus data to streamline the population of your publication profile. Include your ORCiD in ResearchNow to keep your online identities linked together. 

Instructions to clean your profile step-by-step are available, go to ORCiD, ResearchNow, Scopus research profile management and Web of Science researcher profile management.