Metrics

Bibliometrics uses a range of statistical methods to analyse publications, author output and citation counts. Indicators can be gathered from multiple sources. The Finding metrics section lists the sources you can use to find your publications, co-authors and who is citing your work.

Bibliometric indicators include:

Number of publications 

This may include peer reviewed journal articles, reviews, conference papers, scholarly books and book chapters.

Career citation count

The number of citations an author has accrued.

Citations per paper

The average citations received per publication in a set of documents.

Percentage of publication that are cited (or uncited)

The extent to which other researchers have utilised the research output of an author (or set of documents).

h-index 

A measure of the number of publications published (productivity), as well as how often they are cited. Learn how to find your h-index.

Normalised citation impact

Normalised indicators show how a paper or group of papers performs relative to averages or baselines. 

• Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI)
  • found via InCites
  • is an indicator of impact normalised for subject focus, age, and document type. A CNCI value of one represents performance at par with world average, values above one are considered above average, and values below one are considered below average. CNCI value of two is considered twice the world average
• Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
  • found via Scopus or SciVal
  • is the ratio of citations received relative to the expected world average for a subject field, publication type and publication year
• Relative Citation Ratio (RCR)
  • found via Dimensions and National Institute of Health's (NIH) iCite database
• Field Citation Ratio (FCR)
  • found via Dimensions

Percentage of papers in the top citation percentiles

• Documents in the top 1% — the percentage of your papers that have been cited enough times to place them in the top 1% (when compared to papers in the same category, year, and of the same document type)
• Documents in the top 10% — the percentage of your papers that have been cited enough times to place them in the top 10%. This is normalised for category, year, and document type

Collaborations

• Industry — the percentage of your papers produced with co-authors from industry.
• International — the percentage of your papers produced with international co-authors.
• External — the percentage of your papers produced with co-authors outside your institution, such as corporate or health organisations

Percentage of documents in top journals

The amount of documents within a publication set that have been published in good quality journals. Refer to Journal quality, in the previous section, for more information.

Interpretation and good practice

The following guides provide advice and practical application tips for some of the most commonly used indicators.

• Using SciVal responsibly
• Using InCites responsibly