Research metrics

A simple guide

How to use research metrics

FOR RESEARCHERS FOR JOURNAL EDITORS FOR LIBRARIANS
Metrics can help you to choose Metrics can help you assess Metrics can help you to select
which journal to submit your your journal’s standing in the journals for your institution, and
work to, and assess the ongoing community, raise your journal’s analyze their usage and impact.
impact of an individual piece of profile, and support growth in They can also help you assess
research (including your own). high-quality submissions. the impact of research published
by those in your institution.

J Journal Metrics A Article Metrics

J IMPACT FACTOR J 5-YEAR IMPACT FACTOR J SNIP

The Impact Factor is the most The 5-Year Impact Factor attempts to Source Normalized Impact
commonly used metric to assess a reflect the longevity of research, and is Per Paper
journal. Different subjects have varying more stable year-on-year for smaller SNIP is published twice a year and
citation patterns, which are reflected in titles as there are a larger number of looks at a 3-year period. It attempts to
a journal’s calculation. articles and citations included. These correct subject-specific characteristics
Released annually based on Web of are useful for subject areas where it so it is easier to make cross-discipline
Science Journal Citation Reports®, only takes longer for work to be cited. comparisons between journals. It
journals in the Science Citation Index measures citations received relative to
Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences How it’s calculated: citations expected for the subject field.
Citation Index (SSCI) can have an Number of citations in one year
Impact Factor. to content published in the previous How it’s calculated:
five years. Journal citation count per paper.
How it’s calculated: / /
Number of citations in one year Number of articles and reviews Citation potential in the field.
to content published in the previous published within the previous
two years. five years.
/
Number of articles and reviews
published within the previous two
years.

J SJR J CITESCORE J EIGENFACTOR

Scimago Journal Rank Currently available for over 22,000 The Eigenfactor measures the influence
The SJR aims to capture the effect the journals indexed in Scopus, CiteScore of a journal within the relevant
subject field, quality, and reputation of aims to capture the optimum citation literature over 5 years. A citation from
a journal has on a citation. It looks at period for most subject areas. It is a a highly cited journal is worth more
the prestige of a journal by considering ratio of citations to research published, than one that receives few citations.
the sources of citations to it, rather and looks at all content published in a
than counting all citations equally. journal (not just articles and reviews). How it’s calculated:
Each citation received by a journal is
Number of citations in one year to
assigned a weight based on the SJR of How it’s calculated: content published in the previous five
the citing journal. So, a citation from a
All citations recorded in Scopus in a years (weighted).
journal with a high SJR value is worth
given year to content published in the /
more than a citation from a journal
previous three years.
with a low SJR value. Number of articles published within
/ the previous five years.
How it’s calculated: Number of items published in a journal
within the previous three years.
Average number of weighted citations
in a given year.
/
Number of articles published in the
previous three years.

J CITED HALF-LIFE J A H-INDEX A ALTMETRIC ATTENTION

Cited Half-Life measures the longevity The h-index attempts to measure the SCORE
of research. It reflects how long productivity of a researcher and the Altmetric Attention Scores tracks
research continues to be referred to citation impact of their publications. the online shares and conversations
and cited after it has been published. It varies by field and depends on relating to a piece of published
which data source is used to calculate research. Each online ‘mention’ of
How it’s calculated: the value. If you have a h-index of that research is weighted differently.
10 you must have published at least So, a journal article referred to (or
Number of years after which 50% of 10 papers that have each been cited ‘mentioned’) in an international
the lifetime journal citations in a year 10 times or more. newspaper is given more weighting in
have been received.
the overall Altmetric Attention Score
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group CC-BY-NC

How it’s calculated: than someone tweeting about the same

piece of research.
Number of articles published which
have received the same number of
citations. How it’s calculated: Gathers data
collected around research articles
that isn’t usage or citation data, such
as mentions on social media, in news
outlets, on blogs, in policy documents
or patents, and in online reference
managers.

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