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Publication Metrics

Citation counts

To asses the impact of an individual article, citation tracking tools could be used to count the number of times an article has been cited. A citation count can be a useful indicator of the impact of an article, however it will not provide the full picture, and there are a number of disadvantages: 

  • Citation counts will vary from one data source to another
  • Data sources often to not include non-journals
  • Citation practices vary across disciplines
  • Older articles may have a higher citation count 
  • Negative citations are included

Benchmarking

Benchmarking against article from a similar discipline and of a similar age, gives a clearer picture of the impact of an individual article.  

Field-weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) 

Citation impacts normalised by the field indicate how the number of citations received by a publication compares to the average or expected number of citations received by other similar publications. Similar publications are determined by year, type, and discipline. FWCI is calculated using citation data from Scopus.

FWCI can also be used to benchmark a group of outputs. It is one of the metrics that is used by The Times Higher Education World Rankings. 

 

Examples
  • A FWCI of 1.00 indicates that a publication or group of outputs have been cited exactly in line with the global average for similar outputs.
  • A FWCI of 1.82 indicates that a publication or group of outputs have been cited 82% more than the global average for similar outputs.
  • A FWCI of 0.77 indicates that a publication or group of outputs have been cited 23% less than the global average for similar outputs

Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI)

This is another metric for citation impacts normalised but the field, but this time using data from Web of Science.

% Outputs in Top percentiles

The % of a group of outputs which are in the global top 1/10/25% most cited outputs.

Beyond citation information

Many journals provide article-level metrics beyond citation counts. 

  • Page views
  • Downloads
  • Shares 
  • Comments

This data could be used to demonstrate interest in an article immediately after publication, for example.