Metrics for Health researchers
For health researchers, many research metrics are available quickly and easily through your author profiles in 3 key places:
- The Scopus database (and related analytics tool SciVal)
- The Web of Science database (and related analytics tool InCites)
- Google Scholar
Scopus and Web of Science each index a list of specific journals. Coverage for health topics is good in both databases, so you will likely find most of your journal article publications included in your profile. There is more limited coverage of books, book chapters, and conference papers - but you may find that some of these publications are included too. Google Scholar can be a helpful extra tool as its search engine usually finds more publications and citations from across the web.
Alert
To work with most of the metrics described in this guide, you will need to update and maintain your author profiles regularly. Author profiles are the foundation for bibliometric analysis.
Check out the Author profiles guide for further information and instructions on how to maintain and update your author profiles.
Click on the plus (+) icons below to discover metrics you could inyour application.
Journal articles
Metrics on an article are usually available from the article's record page in databases.
Additional information on article and journal metrics may require the use of other resources, such as SCImago.
Keep in mind the metrics on a journal article may vary due to the analytics in a particular database.
Our guide can provide you with information and instructions on metrics related to journal articles in the following areas:
Books and chapters
Metrics and indicators for books and chapters can be challenging to find, due to the limitation in indexing of books in the major citation databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science. Google Scholar is another useful tool for gathering citation metrics and reviews of books and chapters.
Our guide can provide you with information and instructions on metrics related to books and chapters in the following areas:
- Citation count
- Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
- Altmetrics (e.g. social media and news mentions)
- World wide and Australia library holdings of books
- Book or chapter reviews
Search Google or the publisher's website for information on a book or books chapters:
- Awards received
- Credentials of the publisher or editors
- Listing on university, school or professional body reading list
- Listing on a best seller list
Conference papers
Metrics for conference papers can be difficult to find. The prestige and credential of the conference and its organiser can often indicate the quality and status of a conference in its related research fields.
Our guide can provide you with information and instructions on metrics related to books and chapters in the following areas:
Search Google or conference website for information on:
- Credentials of the conference organiser
- Prestige of the conference in a field
It's critical to be strategic when choosing which conferences to attend and present your papers. For more information check out the Conference: The how-to-choose section of the Your publishing plan guide.
Author metrics
Author level metrics are available from the research metrics dashboard and your profile in Elements. Also any author profiles you have set up in Scopus, Web of Science, or Google Scholar.
Keep in mind the author may vary due to the analytics in a particular database.
Our guide can provide you with information and instructions on metrics related to journal articles in the following areas:
Benchmarking
You can use benchmarking tools - SciVal and InCites – Deakin subscribes to, in order to demonstrate the engagement and outstanding impact of your work within your discipline and the wider community. The benchmarking is available against your peers and overall institution, country or global performance.
SciVal and InCites benchmarking tools can provide metrics in the following areas:
- h-index
- Total citation count
- Citation per document
- Percentage of cited Publications
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact or Normalized citation impact
- Output in Top Citation Percentiles
- Publications in Top Journal Percentiles by a specific journal ranking
- Collaboration
- Patent-citations count
- Number of citing countries
Altmetrics
Altmetrics or alternative metrics, refers to data that indicates the impact or attention a particular work receives on social media (e.g. X (formerly Twitter), blogs, Facebook, Mendeley etc.) such as views, downloads, mentions in the media, and shares on platforms.
Altmetric providers also track citations in publications such as policy documents, patents, and medical guidelines.
Our guide can provide you with information and instructions on Altmetrics related to:
- Social media (e.g tweets, Facebook likes, blog posts etc.)
- Article stats (e.g. views, downloads, saves etc.)
- News mentions
- Policy mentions
- Patent citations
Caution
While the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) may be helpful for evaluating the influence of journals within a particular subject area, it should not be used to measure the quality of an individual article, or the impact of a researcher. It has been used this way in the past, but bibliometrics experts discourage it, and recommend more appropriate article and author-level metrics.
Managing your research metrics in Scopus
Your Scopus Author ID
- Your Scopus Author ID is automatically generated the first time you publish an article indexed in Scopus
- Future publications will be matched to your ID based on metadata such as your name, affiliation, and discipline. If this data is not able to be matched, a new Author ID may be created - if this happens, you can request to have the IDs merged
- Your Scopus Author ID will only list your publications that are indexed in the Scopus database
- Your profile provides metrics, and some interesting analysis features
- Your Scopus Author ID is also used in the SciVal research analytics product
- Visit the Scopus Support Centre for more information.
Finding your profile in Scopus
- Access Scopus from the Library website
- Change the Search option to Authors, and type your last name, first initial, and affiliation in the correct search fields
- Select the correct author from the search results
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If you find multiple profiles exist for you, use the Author Feedback Wizard to merge your Scopus profiles, set your affiliation, and add or remove documents. You will need to create a log in for Scopus to use the Wizard - if you already have an Elsevier product log in that you use for SciVal or Mendeley, this will work.
Which metrics are available?
At the author level:
- Documents by author (published in Scopus sources)
- Total citations (in Scopus sources)
- H-Index
- Document and citation trends graph
At the document (article, book/chapter, conference paper) level:
- Citations in Scopus
- Percentile rank within subject area
- Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
- PlumX Altmetrics: including social media mentions, downloads, Mendeley readers, and more.
Managing your research metrics in Web of Science
Create a Publons profile to manage your Web of Science publications
- Publons is the new environment where you can benefit from the improved Web of Science ResearcherID, add your publications, track your citations, and manage your Web of Science record.
- You need to create a Publons profile for yourself. Login with your Web of Science account or create a new one. It then assigns a unique ResearcherID to you.
- Note: If you had a public ResearcherID profile, it has moved to Publons automatically.
- You can add any of your publications to your Publons profile, but metrics will only be provided for publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database.
- Create a list of your publications by searching Web of Science or uploading a file. For more information visit the ResearcherID-Publons FAQs.
Why should I have a Publons profile?
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To make it easier to gather citation metrics from Web of Science, and the research analytics product, InCites.
Or search for yourself in Web of Science and claim your publications
- Access Web of Science from the Library A-Z Databases
- From the Select a database drop down menu, choose Web of Science Core Collection
- Choose the Author Search searching option
- Type your last name into the search box, and select the matching option. Do the same for your first name or initial. Include alternative names if appropriate, and click Find
- If Web of Science finds multiple profiles containing your publications, tick the ones you want to include and click View Combined Record
- Click on Claim This Record and follow the steps to verify publications. Once the publications are linked to your Publons profile you can make edits there which will update the profile in Web of Science
- There should now be a ResearcherID associated with your Publons profile and your Web of Science publications page - this can be used to search for yourself in InCites - which provides more extensive research metrics and analytics using the Web of Science dataset.
Get basic research metrics for Web of Science publications
From either your Publons profile or Web of Science record, you can now view basic metrics for your Web of Science publications:
- Total publications
- Sum of times cited
- Citing articles
- H-Index
Create a citation report
- From your Web of Science record, choose to view your publications as a set of results to export, analyse, and view full text
- Click Create Citation Report in the top right hand corner of the results screen
- Within the citation report you can view year on year information, average citations, and other citation totals both with and without self citations, and export the data to an excel file.
Use Analyse Results to learn more
Clicking Analyse Results on any set of search results (including your own publications viewed as a results set) splices the data by many different metadata fields and provides simple visualisations, for example, to view your publications by:
- Web of Science categories
- Publication years
- Document types
- Funding agencies
- Source (journal) titles
- and more.