This guide introduces resources that describe, utilize, and support the current research landscape.
Considerations of the roles of author, content, sources, impact, reputation, rankings, and benchmarking are increasingly important in analyzing contributions to the research life cycle.
Information here is organized by the different methods of impact that the research landscape is defined by:
Tools are promoted that can be used to engage in research metrics. Since the landscape is constantly changing, Emerging Metrics are also explored.
Some recommended methods of research impact and citation metrics are detailed in the pages of this guide:
Limitations of citation metrics:
Among other things, awareness of your scholarly impact can help you:
Image credit: "Metric" CC-BY-ND 2.0 Christina Welsh on Flickr
This guide is designed to help faculty members, graduate students and librarians use and understand the citation analysis tools available to us. At UCI, there is access to some of the major resources used for citation metrics, for example to obtain an Impact Factor (IF) you could consult the following tools -- Web of Science, Journal Citation Reports and Google Scholar. Descriptions of and guides to these tools can be accessed using the above drop-down menu, organized according to need.
Tools and methods of citation analysis are used to determine:
Because of the limitations of each method, it is important to use multiple methods, sources, and tools to get a fuller and more complete analysis. Increasingly, the research community is studying how to assess the value of cooperation and collaboration among colleagues, scholars and scientists, with barriers being reduced and geography more global. New metrics and values will likely emerge through different sources, to complement and extend already existing methods and products.
We used the UCI guide that was initially prepared by Laine Thielstrom and the guide by UCB's Rachel Samberg.