Short Presentation aimed at providing a quick introduction to Bibliometrics. It is followed by a more indept session with a practical component.

1. What is Bibliometrics and how
does it work?
Ciaran Quinn, Research Support Librarian,
Maynooth University
6th May 2015
17/04/2015 Maynooth University

2. What is Bibliometrics?
 Statistical analysis of bibliographic data by
counting citations
◦ Measures patterns of authorship , publication and the
use of the literature.
◦ Usually Citation analysis of research outputs &
publications
◦ Assess Research impact of individuals, groups,
institutions
◦ Measuring by Author (H Index), Article (Plos), or
Publication (Journal Impact Factor)
◦ Measure of Output not Quality (Quantitative Not
Qualitative !)
 Other measures could include funding received, number of
patents, awards granted, or qualitative measures such as
peer review
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3. Why use Bibliometrics?
 Measure of the Impact of your Research
◦ Your Publishing activity !
◦ CV, Promotion, Tenure, Grants, Feedback to funding
bodies/Industry/Public
◦ Showcase Individual/Group/Institutional Research
 Identify Areas of Research Strengths/Weaknesses
◦ Inform Research Priorities
 Identify highest impact or top performing Journals in a
Subject Area
◦ Where to Publish, learning about a particular subject area,
identify emerging areas of research
 Identify the top researchers in a subject area
◦ Collaborations/Competitors
◦ Recruitment
◦ Learning about a subject area
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4. Examples of Metrics
 Scholarly Output: How many articles by an individual, Research Group,
University
 Citation counts (to measure the impact of an article or author)
 No one comprehensive source for all articles !
 Field-weighted cited impact (SciVal)
 Outputs in top percentiles (SciVal)
 Journals in top 10%
 Good for early career researchers to be in the top journals !
 Collaboration & Potential Collaboration metrics (SciVal)
 H-Index:
 available from a number of sources
 Journal Impact Factor (Web of Science)
 Compare Journals: SJR, SNIP, IPP (Scopus)
 ScImago Journal & Country Rank: SJR (uses Scopus Data)
 Weighted by the Prestige of a Journal
 Google Scholar Citations (Citations/H Index)
 Publish or Perish (Author Impact, Journal Impact)
 Good for unpublished material & books
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5. Citation Tracking Tools
Key Tools
 Web of Science/Incites:
◦ Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences & Science
Citation Indexes (Thomson Reuters)
 Scopus/SciVal:
◦ Citation Overview/ Tracker, Analyse Results,
Author Evaluator (Elsevier)
◦ Also uses Mendeley Readership Stats !
 SciMago: Journal & Country Rank (Elsevier)
 Publish or Perish (Harzing)
 Google Scholar Citations
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6. Other Tools
(More Limited !)
 PubMed (Cited in PubMed Central)
 EBSCO: Find Citing Articles (Cited by EBSCO)
 IEEE Xplore (Electrical Eng & Computer Science)Cited by
IEEE
 ACM Digital Library (Cited by)
 JSTOR: (Items citing this item)
 Anthro Source (Citation alerts)
 SciFinder (Get References & Get Citing Options)
 Cite Seer citation statistics
◦ Computer & Information Science
 MathsSciNet: Author & Publications Citations
 Altmetics tools: Look at non traditional metrics at article level
◦ Impact Story, Altmetrics.com, Mendeley (Elsevier) Plum Analytics
(EBSCO)
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7. Other Journal Rankings listing
 Washington & Lee University School of
Law: Law Library Law Journals:
Submissions and Ranking, 2006 - 2013
:Journal Citations
 http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/
 Association of Business Schools
http://www.bizschooljournals.com/
 SciMago
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.ph
p?area=1400
 Journal Quality List (Harzing)
http://www.harzing.com/jql.htm
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8. Issues & Limitations (1)
 Sciences (quantitative) Vs Humanities (qualitative) :
 Do Bibliometrics suit sciences better?
 Citation rates in Humanities much lower (Social Sciences fare better)
 Citation patterns can differ greatly between disciplines.
 Need to compare like with like !
 Some disciplines don’t publish as much in Journals
 Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences
 Only published Literature included
 Policy papers, Professional Journals, Working papers, Monographs, Reports
,Dissertations
 Citation does not have to be positive!
 Citation tools don’t index all research areas or publications .
 Different tools/different datasets = different results
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9. Issues & Limitations (2)
 Manipulation of the system!
◦ Self citing, citing colleagues, splitting outputs into many articles, participation in multi
authored publications
 Editors can manipulate their journal’s ranking by asking authors to include
more citations of other articles from that journal (Coercive citation!)
 Some Publishers overly concerned with increased Impact Factor
◦ Rejecting quality articles !
 Difficult for early career researchers to show their output, metrics take time
◦ Reflect poorly against more experienced researchers.
 Measures Impact (number of citations) not the quality of the work !
◦ Quantitative not qualitative
 Academic freedom? Where you publish, What you publish, How often you
publish
◦ Value of research vs getting cited !
◦ Shorter research cycles !
◦ Is curiosity driven research too narrow for journals to be interested?
◦ Increase in shorter articles to “Letters” Journals (Biology, Physics)
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10. Recent Articles
 “Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research
metrics”: Diana Hicks et al,(2015)
http://www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-the-
leiden-manifesto-for-research-metrics-1.17351
 “The focus on bibliometrics makes papers less
useful”
 Forcing research to fit the mould of high-impact journals
weakens it. Hiring decisions should be based on merit, not
impact factor, says Reinhard Werner. (2015)
http://www.nature.com/news/the-focus-on-
bibliometrics-makes-papers-less-useful-1.16706
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11. Key points
 Compare like with like
◦ Similar Research Areas
◦ Stage of academic career
◦ Similar Journals (Discipline)
◦ Similar size institutions
 Don’t just use one tool !
◦ Coverage varies in content, depth, discipline
 Does your discipline publish in journals and are those
journals included in the Datasets being used to generate
metrics?
 Data needs to be looked at in context ! Use a variety of
metrics and other qualitative information where appropriate
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12. What Metrics Should I use?
 What question am I trying to
achieve/answer?
 What am I evaluating/showcasing?
 How will I recognise good
performance?
 Which metrics will help me?
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13. Practical Session:
Creating a Researcher Profile;
Researcher Impact; Citation
Tracking; Journal Impact
Ciaran Quinn, Research Support Librarian,
Maynooth University.
6th May 2015
17/04/2015 Maynooth University

14. Researcher Identity
& Publication Profiles
Why do it?
 Avoid Author & Institutional Disambiguation
◦ Be consistent in the variation of your name (& Institutional
name) that you use
◦ Makes sure your work is correctly attributed to you
◦ Groups your name variants and different institutions you
may have published in together
 Improves Visibility = Being Found & Read=More
Citations
◦ Helps Researchers, Students, Funding Agencies, Potential
Collaborators find your work
 Helps you track and measure the impact of your
research
 Easier for you to create a list of your publications and
sort them by impact
 Monitor your Researcher Identity and keep it up to date
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15. What Tools are available?
 Institutional
◦ RIS (Research Information System) Maynooth
◦ RPD (Researcher Profile Directory)
http://apps.maynoothuniversity.ie/rpd/
 Researcher ID (Thomson Reuters)
 Scopus Author Identifier (Elsevier)
 Open Researcher & Contributor ID (ORCID)
 Google Scholar Citations
 Peer Networks (Academia.edu,
ResearchGate.net, Mendeley.com, Social
Science Research Network (SSRN.com),
LinkedIn.com
 Utilise social bookmarking with Mendeley, Zotero
or CiteULike.org
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18. Researcher ID
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20. Scopus: Author Identifier
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23. Google Scholar Citations
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25. Researcher Impact
 Keeping track of your research
◦ Check your H Index
◦ Set up Citation Alerts: WOS, Scopus,
Google Citations & others
◦ Research/Social Networking sites &
Altmetrics to see who is view/downloading
or discussing your work
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26. Improving your Research
Impact
 Increase your visibility
◦ Set up a Researcher ID (WOS), Check &
update Your Scopus ID
 Export them to Orcid
◦ Google Scholar Citations
◦ Social Media/Social Bookmarking/Blogging
◦ Institutional Repositories
◦ Make yourself findable by linking up you
Research title, Article title and Keywords
◦ Posters/Presentations at Conferences
◦ Collaborate with other academics
◦ Submit articles to the highest ranking journals
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27. Citation Tracking using Alerts
 Scopus
 WOS: Citation Indexes
◦ (Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, Conferences, Books)
 Google Scholar
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28. WOS Citation Indexes
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29. Scopus Alerts
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30. Other Citation Sources
 ERIC (Cited by)
 High Wire (Cited by High Wire article)
 HeinOnline (Cited by)
 JSTOR (Items citing this item)
 ProQuest (Cited by other articles in the
database)
 Science Direct (Citing articles from Scopus)
 Springer Link (Cited by)
 SSRN (Citations tab)
 Wiley (Cited by)
 Ingenta Connect
 Institute of Physics: IOP (All citing articles)
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31. Why are Journal Rankings
Important?
 Journals are ranked by how frequently recently published
papers from a particular journal are cited
 Prestige of publishing in a particular Journal !
◦ Bur does it measure the academic value/research quality of an
article!
 However it does have an impact on the reputation of a
researcher and therefore its important for careers
◦ Used by funding agencies and academic institutions
◦ 36% of top cited articles in top 5% of Journals
 Gradually declining
 Metrics can be gamed
◦ Journals may decide to publish on certain topics or certain
article types (such as reviews) to maximise their JIF
 San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment 2012
 IF creates biases and inaccuracies when appraising scientific
research. It also states that the impact factor is not to be used as a
substitute "measure of the quality of individual research articles, or in
hiring, promotion, or funding decisions”
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32. Journal Rankings/Metrics
 Journal Citation Reports (includes
Journal Impact Factor): Thomson
Reuters (2 & 5 years)
 Journal Compare/Analyzer: Scopus
(Elsevier)(3years)
 SciMago Journal & Country Ranking
(Elsevier)(3 years)
 Google Scholar Metrics (Top
Publications, 5 years)
 Publish Or Perish
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33. Journal Citation Reports
Web of Science
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34. Compare Journals Scopus
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35. ScImago
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37. Other Journal Rankings
 Created Citations e.g. Legal & Business
 Washington & Lee University School of Law:
Law Library Law Journals: Submissions and
Ranking, 2006 - 2013 :Journal Citations
 http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/
 Association of Business Schools
http://www.bizschooljournals.com/
 SciMago
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?ar
ea=1400
 Journal Quality List (Harzing)
http://www.harzing.com/jql.htm
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38.  Eigenfactor.Org
◦ http://eigenfactor.org/index.php
 Centre for advanced studies in
Management and Economics (List of
Journal Ranking Tools)
◦ http://www.cefage.uevora.pt/en/links/revist
as_cientificas_rankings
 Journal Metrics.com (SciMago)
◦ http://www.journalmetrics.com/about-
journal-metrics.php
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39. Benchmarking
individual/institutional Research
 Tools
◦ Scival (Elsevier)
 SciVal offers quick, easy access to the
research performance of 4,600 research
institutions and 220 countries worldwide.
 Overviews, Benchmarking, Collaborations
◦ Incites (Thomson Reuters)
 Incites is a tool that allows you to analyze
institutional productivity and benchmark your
output against peers worldwide.
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43. Time to give it a go !
Practical Session !
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44. Author Name
 Look up your own author name (or someone you
know) on Scopus, Web of Science and Google
Scholar
◦ Are they there? Does the data adequately represent
them?
◦ Are there many differences between the data
sources?
 Number of documents, H Index
◦ How many name variants are there?
◦ Are there many errors?
 Set up a profile on Researcher ID (Wos) and
Google Citations. Check your profile on Scopus.
Export your profile to Orcid.
 Are there corrections that will need to be made?
◦ Name variants/Correct Documents assigned
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45. Citation Alerts
 Search for your articles and set up a
citation alert
◦ Do this in WOS, Scopus and Google
Scholar
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46. Journal Impact
 Look at the impact of an important
journal in you field (use WOS &
Scopus)
◦ Is it included in the datasets?
◦ If not does that surprise you?
 Identify the top Journal in your
research area
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47. The End
 Questions?
 Contact: ciaran.quinn@nuim.ie
 Research Support Blog:
http://ciarnthelibrarian.blogspot.ie/
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