Most recent version of slides from Durham "Bibliometrics, Journal Impact Factors and Maximising the Cite-ability of Journal Articles" session.. Delivered as part of the Durham University Researcher Development Programme. [Last Devlivered November 2014] Further Training available at https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/research/training/

1. Publishing your research
Bibliometrics, Journal Impact
Factors and maximising the cite-ability
of journal articles
James Bisset james.bisset@durham.ac.uk
Academic Liaison Librarian (Research Support)

2. Session outline
- Intro: what can you measure?
- Citations
- Monitoring and assessing
- Author metrics
- Networking opportunities & performance measurement ?
- Journal metrics
- Impact factors and where to publish
- Maximising cite-ability
- How can you maximise the cite-ability of your research?
- Altmetrics overview
- Beyond academic impact

3. Quick Survey (1)…
• How many have already published any
research papers in journals or conference
proceedings?
• How many of you are expected to during
course of your studies?
• How many of you have already been advised
where to publish, or where not to publish,
based on what is the “ best ” journal?

4. Intro
What can
you
measure?

5. What can you measure with
bibliometrics?
• Article/Book Impact: One measure of the impact of individual journal articles,
conference proceedings or books, can be measured by the number of times
they are cited by other works.
• Journal impact: The perceived impact of a specific academic journal can be
assessed by the number of times their articles are cited and where they are
cited.
• Researcher impact: The number of outputs and citations a researcher
generates can be an indicator for the impact of an individual researcher.
• Institutional impact: The prestige of a department or area of research within an
institution compared to those at other institutions can be measured by the sum
of individual researchers ‘impact’.

6. Are bibliometrics
effective & reliable
measures of
academic impact?

7. Quick Survey (2)
• Web of Science
• JCR
• SciVerse Scopus
• PoP software
• Sherpa ROMEO
• Sherpa JULIET
• Sherpa FACT
• JIF
• Eigenfactor
• SCImagoJR
• SNIP
• h – index / g-index
• altmetrics

8. Part 1
Introduction:
Citations &
Citation
Indices

9. Citations
• Links between papers that have something in
common
• Building on or challenging research
• Help make a judgement about impact an article
has made
• Sum of citations can be an indication of the
impact of an author’s work / a journal as a
collection of articles

10. Citation indices
1955 Eugene Garfield
- the idea of creating a citation index for
science to…

11. Citation indices
“eliminate the uncritical citation of
fraudulent, incomplete or obsolete data
by making it possible for the
conscientious scholar to be aware of
criticisms of earlier papers.”
Garfield, E (1955) ‘Citation Indexes for Science’ Science, New Series, Vol. 122, No. 3159, pp. 108-111

12. Citation indices
1955
Eugene Garfield - the idea of measuring the “impact” of journal
articles using citations
1960s
Science Citation Index developed to highlight “formal, explicit
linkages between papers that have particular points in common”
1975
Journal Citation Reports – uses Web of Science data to rank journals
within disciplines

13. Citation indices
(2008) Taylor and Francis LibSite Newsletter,
issue 9. p. 5
Science subjects
Social-science subjects

14. Citation indices
“reference lists are held under
copyright by academic publishers
which makes tracking citations
impossible”
The death of the reference and the re-use factor (2013)
http://figshare.com/blog/The_Death_Of_The_Reference_and_the
_reuse_factor/103

15. Web of Science
• Provided by Thomson Reuters.
• Includes the Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts &
Humanities & Books Citation Indexes.
• Indexes about 11,800 journals, plus conference
proceedings.
• Approximately 5,000 journals covering arts,
humanities and social sciences.

16. SciVerse Scopus
• Launched in 2004 by Elsevier
• Main commercial competition to Web of Science
• Main emphasis on science initially, but now
broader in scope.
• Currently indexes c.19,000 ‘active’ journals plus
conference proceedings
• Many titles covered in both WoS and Scopus

17. Google Scholar
• Beta version launched late 2004 .
• Pulls data from a much broader range of
documents (eg books, reports, academic blogs,
wider range of journal publishers).
• Useful for subjects not covered by Web of
Science.
• Some concern over quality and accuracy of
citation data, and how regularly it is updated.

18. Things you can do
• Count citations to an article
• Link to other related articles
• Citation mapping
• Set up citation alerts
• Search for cited references
• See citation reports for authors and journals

19. Demo
Web of Science /
Google Scholar

20. Hands-on
Via Flickr Creative Commons, by © Stuti Sakhalkar. Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblackcanvas/2945878325/

21. Part 2
Author
metrics

22. Citation metrics
• h-index (Hirsch, 2005)
– An author’s number of articles (h ) that have received at
least h citations
– a researcher with an h-index of 10 has published 10
articles that have each been cited at least 10 times
• g-index (Egghe, 2006)
– The highest number (g) of papers that together received g2
or more citations
– a researcher with a g-index of 10 has published 10 papers
that together have been cited at least 100 times

23. H-index

24. Author: Smith, J
Has written and published 9 articles (a-i), which
have been cited as follows:
a:3, b:6, c:6, d:2, e:13, f:3, g:0, h:1, i:3
“no. of articles (n) that have received at least n
citations”

25. h-index – what’s in a
number?
• Nobel Prize Winner 2013, Peter W
Higgs
- H-index (Google Scholar) =
- H-index (Web of Science) =

27. G-index

28. Author: Smith, J
Has written and published 9 articles (a-i), which
have been cited as follows:
a:3, b:6, c:6, d:2, e:13, f:3, g:0, h:1, i:3
“The highest number (g) of papers that together
received g2 or more citations”

29. g-index – what’s in a
number?
• Nobel Prize Winner 2013, Peter W
Higgs
- g-index (Web of Science) =
- g-index (Google Scholar) =

30. Demo
Web of Science

31. Hands-on
Via Flickr Creative Commons, by © Stuti Sakhalkar. Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblackcanvas/2945878325/

32. Google Scholar
• Track citations to your publications
– Check who is citing your publications. Graph your
citations over time. Compute citation metrics.
• View publications by colleagues
– Keep up with their work. See their citation metrics.
• Appear in Google Scholar search results
– Create a public profile that can appear in Google
Scholar when someone searches for your name.

33. Demo
Google Scholar
- My citations

34. Issues
• Author identification
• eg Professor Gordon Love
A name is not unique...
- Prof. Gordon Love, University of California Riverside (Earth Science)
- Dr Gordon L Love, Sacramento (Medicine and Health)
- Prof. Gordon Love, Durham University (Physics)

35. Issues
• Author identification
• eg Professor Gordon Love
...so you need an alternative identifier (or 3)
- ORCID profile (0000-0001-5137-9434)
- Researcher ID profile (A-3071-2011)
- Google Scholar profile (3xJXtlwAAAAJ)

36. Demo
Researcher ID
ORCID

37. Hands-on
Via Flickr Creative Commons, by © Stuti Sakhalkar. Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblackcanvas/2945878325/

38. Publish or Perish Software
• Anne-Wil Harzing (2006), current version
4.6.4 (6th June 2014)
• Aimed at individual researchers
• Analyse own performance using a range
of metrics
• FREE TO DOWNLOAD (Windows, Apple OS X,
GNU/Linux) and FREE TRAINING MATERIAL
• http://www.harzing.com/pop_win.htm

39. Part 3
Journal
metrics

40. Journal Citation Reports
• JCRs – annual publication of journals and
their impact factors.
• Over 10,800 titles, across 232 disciplines
have JIFs in 2013 editions
• A journal that is cited once, on average, for
each article published has an JIF of 1.
• 2014 edition… is JCR year 2013, covering Web
of Science data from 2012...

41. Journal Impact Factor
Citations in 2013 (in journals
indexed in Web of Science) to all
articles published by Journal X
in 2011 & 2012
Number of articles (deemed to
be citable by Web of Science)
that were published in Journal X
in 2011 & 2012
Journal
X’s 2013
impact
factor
=

42. Journal Ranking
(2008) Taylor and Francis LibSite Newsletter, issue 9. p. 2

43. Journal Ranking
(2008) Taylor and Francis LibSite Newsletter, issue 9. p. 3

44. Demo
JCRs
Journal Impact Factors

45. Other journal impact metrics
• Eigenfactor - http://www.eigenfactor.org/
– Web of Science data
• SCImagoJR - http://www.scimagojr.com/
– Scopus data
– Includes country ranking

46. Hands-on
Via Flickr Creative Commons, by © Stuti Sakhalkar. Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblackcanvas/2945878325/

47. Issues
• Author identification
• Register on ResearcherID - eg Dr Dan Smith
or ORCID
• Citation cultures vary across disciplines
• Publication cultures vary too
• Research careers have different stages
• Citation counts do not always = excellence
• Scholarly communication evolving

48. Part 4
Maximising
Cite-ability

49. Optimising your cite-ability
• Title & Abstract
(1) Discoverability; (2) Readability; (3) Length
• Reference list
• Journal/means of publication
(1) Impact Factors; (2) Open Access

50. Title & Abstract
(1) Discoverability…

51. Title & Abstract
• Construct a clear, descriptive title
- describe what the research is about
- think about what potential users might be searching for.
• Re-iterate key phrases in the abstract
- improve ranking in search engines
- aid human decision-making
• Easier to find = more likely to be read = may translate to
more likely to be cited (but still dependent upon quality /
interest of research)
Wiley-Blackwell guidelines
http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/seo.asp

52. Australia’s Forgotten
Victims
“Ever since the British colonists in Australia became aware of the
disappearance of the indigenous peoples in the 1830s, they have contrived to
excuse themselves by pointing to the effects of disease and displacement.
Many colonists called for the extermination of Aborigines when they
impeded settlement by offering resistance, yet there was no widespread
public acknowledgement of this as a policy until the later 1960s, when a
critical school of historians began serious investigations of frontier violence.
Their efforts received official endorsement in the 1990s, but profound
cultural barriers prevent the development of a general awareness of this.
Conservative and right-wing figures continue to play down the gravity of what
transpired. These two aspects of Australian public memory are central to the
political humanisation of the country.”

53. Genocide and Holocaust
Consciousness in Australia
“Ever since the British colonists in Australia became aware of the disappearance
of the indigenous peoples in the 1830s, they have contrived to excuse themselves
by pointing to the effects of disease and displacement. Yet although genocide was
not a term used in the nineteenth century, extermination was, and many colonists
called for the extermination of Aborigines when they impeded settlement by
offering resistance. Consciousness of genocide was suppressed during the
twentieth century until the later 1960s, when a critical school of historians began
serious investigations of frontier violence. Their efforts received official
endorsement in the 1990s, but profound cultural barriers prevent the
development of a general genocide consciousness. One of these is Holocaust
consciousness, which is used by conservative and right-wing figures to play down
the gravity of what transpired in Australia. These two aspects of Australian public
memory are central to the political humanisation of the country. ”

54. Title & Abstract
(2) Readability

55. Abstract Readability
• Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013)
- Looked at 16,058 Biology/Biochemistry articles, 16,378 Chemistry
articles and 15,392 Social Sciences articles all covered by Web of
Science.
• Readability not a significant determinant of
citations in either Chemistry or Social Sciences,
and statistically but not practically associated
with citation counts in Biology/Biochemistry.
Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013) “Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration,
journal and document properties” Journal of Informetrics 7: 861-873. Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.08.006

56. Title & Abstract
(3) Length

57. Abstract Length
• Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013)
“abstract length significantly associates with
increased citation impact in all fields”
“the number of keywords and the title length
statistically associate with decreased citations”
Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013) “Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration,
journal and document properties” Journal of Informetrics 7: 861-873. Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.08.006

58. Reference list
“The impact [factor] and the number of cited
references are … significant determinants of
increased citation impact”
Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013) “Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration,
journal and document properties” Journal of Informetrics 7: 861-873. Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.08.006
Consistent with studies in fields including
psychology, medicine, chemistry, physics,
engineering.

59. Journal and means of
publication
(1) JIF

60. Journal of publication
“… the JIF is the main determinant of article citation
impact …”
Didegah, F. and Thelwall, M. (2013) “Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration,
journal and document properties” Journal of Informetrics 7: 861-873. Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.08.006
• Still a perception of the quality of a journal
based on the JIF, meaning wide readership and
cross-citation.

61. Impact?

62. Journal and means of
publication
(2) Open Access

63. Open Access
• Boost’s potential access and visibility of
research
• Removes the research from behind paywall
barriers…
• Meaning you can more easily share via social
media, email etc.

64. Open Access
• 4633 articles across ecology, applied
mathematics, sociology and economics.
• 2280 were open access, and had an average
citation count of 9.04
• 2353 were subscriptions journals, and had an
average citation count of 5.76.
Norris, M. (2008) “The citation advantage of open access articles” Thesis. Available
at https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/4089

65. Open Access
By October 2012, the OA
version had seen nearly 3
times more downloads than
the version sitting behind a
subscription paywall.
Terras, M. (2011) “What happens when you tweet an Open Access Paper” Melissa
Terras’ Blog. Available at http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/what-happens-
when-you-tweet-open-access.html

66. Demo
Sherpa Romeo
Sherpa FACT

67. Optimising your cite-ability
• Think carefully about your abstract and
title.
- keyword usage
- clear, descriptive and complete
• Reference lists
- number of, and where are they from?
• Where are you publishing, and how.

68. Other suggested tips…
• Dr Michael Taylor, Dept. Earth Sciences (Bristol)
- Discusses strengths and weaknesses of his
already published article titles.
- http://tinyurl.com/k6dhcac
- http://tinyurl.com/k7o9msc
- avoid vague words / weak puns
- NEGATIVE “ it’s 12 characters too long to tweet”
- POSITIVE “ the title strongly implies the conclusion”
- POSITIVE “ Short, appealing and (hopefully) funny.”

69. Part 5
Altmetrics
(in brief)

70. Altmetrics (in brief)
“Unlike the JIF, altmetrics reflect the
impact of the article itself, not its venue.
Unlike citation metrics, altmetrics will
track impact outside the academy, impact
of influential but uncited work, and impact
from sources that aren’t peer-reviewed.“
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/

71. Altmetrics (in brief)

72. Altmetrics (in brief)

73. Altmetrics (in brief)
• But you must still approach altmetrics as you
do any metric...
... with a critical head.
• Any result touching on religion AND
medicine/health is likely to be picked up and
shared far more than a high quality piece of
research on optical binding forces and two
dimensional structures...

74. Altmetrics (in brief)

75. Altmetrics (in brief)

76. Further Reading
Pendlebury, D.A. (2009) The use and misuse of journal metrics and other citation indicators. Archivumimmunologiae et
therapiae experimentalis. 57(1): 1-11 (includes “ten commandments of citation analysis”)
Smeyers, P & Burbules, N.C. (2011) How to improve your impact factor: questioning the quantification of academic
quality. Journal of Philosophy of Education. 45(1): 1-17
Van Noorden, R. (2010) A profusion of measures. Nature. 465: 864-866 (has a handy “field guide to metrics”)
Van Noorden, R., Maher, B and Nuzzo, R (Oct 2014) Nature. “The top 100 papers” http://www.nature.com/news/the-top-100-
papers-1.16224
www.journalmetrics.com(2010) The evolution of journal assessment. (compares SCIMagoJR, AI, SNIP and JIF metrics in
table at the en
(2007) Show me the data. Journal of Cell Biology. 179 (6): 1091 Available at
http://jcb.rupress.org/content/179/6/1091.full
Why you should ignore altmetrics and other bibliometric nightmares (Jan 16 2014); http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6369

77. Image Credits
[Slide 10] Via Flickr Creative Commons, by Kirsty Andrews. Original
available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/47745961@N08/5169765739
[Slides 29, 48 and 62] Via Flickr Creative Commons, © Stuti Sakhalkar.
Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblackcanvas/2945878325/
[Slide 30] Via Flickr Creative Commons, by geishaboy500. Original at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503154413@N01/2326873674
[Slides 54] Via Flickr Creative Commons, by emdot. Original available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35237093637@N01/56156364
[Slide 69] Created using http://photofunia.com