METRIC | BENEFITS | LIMITATIONS |
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Scholarly Output - Total number of outputs produced by an individual or group over a specified time period. |
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Collaboration - Publications with co-authors affiliated to international/national organisations or corporate bodies. |
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Downloads - Number of times a publication is downloaded. |
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Citation counts - Total number of citations for an individual, output, group. |
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Publications in top journal percentiles (SNIP) - Metric comparing each journal's citations per publication with the citation potential of its field. |
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Publications in top journal percentiles (CiteScore) - CiteScore is based on the number of citations documents received by a journal in four years, divided by the number of the same document types published and indexed in Scopus in those same four years. |
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Publications in top journal percentiles (SJR) - The average number of weighted citations received in a year, divided by the number of the same document types published in the previous three years. SJR weights each citation to a journal by the SJR of the citing journal. For a detailed description see this paper. |
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Publications in top citation percentiles - Number/percent of publications within the top 1,5,10 or 25% of the most cited publications within the data source. |
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H index - A measure of the number of citations and the number of papers which have been published. e.g. to get a h-index of 5, an author will have had to publish 5 papers with at least 5 citations each. To reach 6, the author will need 6 papers with at least 6 citations each. |
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Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) - Ratio of citations received relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type and year, where 1 is the global average. |
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Journal impact Factor (JIF) - Based on how often articles published in a particular journal during the previous two years were cited by articles published in a particular year. |
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Scopus is a multidisciplinary database containing abstracts and cited references of peer reviewed literature, including journal articles, books and conference proceedings. It contains more than 7 million items, with cited references back to 1970 and more than 16 million author profiles. Information on the content coverage can be found here. You can also download the full list of journal and book titles included from this link.
How do I access Scopus?
Scopus is a subscription service which can accessed via this link - https://www.scopus.com/. Logging into Scopus is recommended even when on campus, this allows you to save searches and create alerts.
Metrics available in Scopus
For an overview of how to view metrics for a journal in Scopus please click here.
SciVal is an online tool which uses Scopus data from 1996 to present, in order to analyse research outputs, identify collaborative partnerships and see trends. SciVal consists of 5 modules:
How do I use SciVal?
SciVal is a subscription service which can be accessed via this link - https://www.scival.com. You can use SciVal to:
Metrics available in SciVal
There are over 30 different metrics available in SciVal. You should ensure you select appropriate metrics for your particular question and that you are aware of influencing factors such as size of group/number of outputs, discipline, time frame and coverage.
For a full range of metrics available in SciVal see the metrics guidebook.
Google Scholar provides an alternative citation count to Scopus and is openly available. You can search for articles or authors here. Citations to articles are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar updates. Scholar trawls the web to pick up references to articles and does not require a source to meet the same criteria as Scopus in order to be included. This can result in there being a significant difference between your citation count in Google and on Scopus.
Google Scholar Metrics enable authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics can be used to browse the top 100 publications by their 5 year h-index and h-median metrics. Scholar Metrics are currently based on our index as it was in June 2020.
Further information on metrics in Google Scholar can be found here.
Altmetrics are metrics and qualitative data that are complementary to traditional, citation-based metrics. They provide insight into how people are interacting with research online and can be used alongside other metrics to help demonstrate early engagement and discussions around research. Altmetrics can be used to indicate attention, dissemination and influence.
There are two main providers of altmetric data:
Altmetrics
This is available on the Pure Portal. The metrics are represented by an 'Altmetric Donut' and the colours vary depending on which sources the output has received attention from. The central score is a weighted approximation of attention based on volume, sources and authors.
Some of the sources covered are listed below:
Further information on the colours and weighting is available here. Note, we do not subscribe to this service and therefore the detail available in Pure may be limited.
This is available on Scopus and the Pure Portal for outputs with a DOI. Metrics are represented by the 'Plum Print' which shows the categories below.
The five categories are:
More information on Plum X is available here. Note, we do not subscribe to this service and therefore the detail available in Pure may be limited.
Benefits | Limitations |
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Accumulate quicker than traditional metrics can indicate early attention | As with all metrics they don't tell the whole story |
Capture more diverse impacts | Potential to be gamed |
Apply to more output types | Bear in mind sentiment - attention isn't always positive |
Relies on existing identifiers e.g. DOI, URL, ISBN, many outputs still not included | |
Can be difficult to determine value |
To help familiarise yourself with some of the functionality in Scopus and SciVal if you have not used these tools previously there are a couple of simple practice exercises below.
For more information on Scopus and SciVal please see the links provided in this course to guidance documents, the pages on LibGuides or contact scival@coventry.ac.uk for help.
FL320, Lanchester Library
Coventry University
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Coventry, United Kingdom
CV1 5DD
Open Access and Pure Deposits - oa.lib@coventry.ac.uk
Research Data Management - rdm.lib@coventry.ac.uk
024 7765 7568
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