Assessing Scholarly Productivity: The Numbers Game
To evaluate the work of scholars
objectively, funding agencies and tenure committees may attempt to
quantify both its quality and impact. Quantifying scholarly work is
fraught with danger, but the current emphasis on assessment in academe
suggests that such measures can only become more important. There are a
number of descriptive statistics associated with scholarly productivity.
These fall broadly into two categories: those that describe individual
researchers and those that describe journals.
times it has been cited by others. This can be accomplished by finding
the paper in Google Scholar
and noting the "Cited by" value beneath the citation. Such numbers may
be added together, or perhaps averaged over a period of years, to
provide an informal assessment of scholarly productivity. Better yet,
use Google Scholar Citations
to keep a running list of your publications and their "cited by"
numbers. For more information on determining where, by whom, and how
often an article has been cited, see IC Library's guide on Cited Reference Searching.
Article comparing Google Scholar, Scopus and World of Science and their pros and cons.
The h-index, created by Jorge E. Hirsh of the University of California, San Diego, is described by its creator as follows:
most-cited papers each have been cited five or more times. This can be
visualized by a graph, on which each point represents a paper. The
scholar's papers are ranked along the x-axis by decreasing
number of citing papers, while the actual number of citing papers is
shown by the point's position along the y-axis. The grey line
represents the equality of paper rank and number of citating articles.
The h-index is equal to the number of points above the grey line.
The value of h will depend on the database used to calculate it. 2
Thomson Reuter's Web of Science and Elsevier's Scopus (neither is
available at IC) offer automated tools for calculating this value. In
November of 2011, Google Scholar Citations became generally available. This will calculate h based on the Google Scholar database. An add-on for Firefox called the Scholar H-Index Calculator is also based on Google Scholar data.
Google Scholar Metrics includes lists of top-ranked journals by h index in a variety of subject areas.
Comparisons of h are only valid within a discipline, since
standards of productivity vary widely between fields. Researchers in the
life sciences, for instance, will generally have higher h values than those in physics.1
A large number of modifications to the h-index have been proposed, many attempting to correct for factors such as length of career and co-authorship.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed
a method to quantify the influence of a research article by making novel
use of its co-citation network to field-normalize the number of
citations it has received. The beta version of iCite, can be used to calculate the Relative Citation Ratios of articles listed in PubMed.
reputation of the journal in which it is published. Various metrics
have been devised to describe the importance of a journal.
(formerly by ISI). This figure is based on how often papers published
in a given journal in the preceding two years are cited during the
current year. This number is divided by the number of "citable items"
published by that journal during the preceding two years to arrive at
the IF. Weaknesses of this metric include sensitivity to inflation
caused by extensive self-citation within a journal and by single,
highly-cited articles. For more information about the IF, see the essays of Dr. Eugene Garfield,
founder of ISI. Determining a journal's IF requires access to Thomson
Reuters Journal Citation Reports, not available at IC Library.
devised at the University of Washington by Jevin West and Carl
Bergstrom.3
Where the IF counts all citations to a given article as being equal,
the eigenfactor weights citations based on the impact of the citing
journal. Its creators assert that it can be viewed as "a rough estimate
of how often a journal will be used by scholars." Eigenfactor values are
freely avialable at eigenfactor.org.
It uses an algorithm similar to Google's PageRank. Currently, this
metric is only available for those journals covered in Elsevier's Scopus
database. Values may be found at scimagojr.com.
for individual journals or for specific disciplines can be difficult,
yet is necessary information for promotion and tenure. Journals with
lower article-acceptance rates are frequently considered to be more prestigious and more “meritorious.”
The method of calculating acceptance rates varies among journals.
Some journals use all manuscripts received as a base for computing this
rate. Other journals allow the editor to choose which papers are sent
to reviewers and calculate the acceptance rate on those that are
reviewed that is less than the total manuscripts received. Also, many
editors do not maintain accurate records on this data and provide only a
rough estimate. Furthermore, the number of people associated with a
particular area of specialization influences the acceptance rate. If
only a few people can write papers in an area, it tends to increase the
journal's acceptance rate. Some journals will include the acceptance rate in the “information for authors” area of the print journal or on the home pages for the journal.
Some sources to find journal acceptance rates are as follows:
Cabell's Directories of Publishing Opportunities -Ithaca Collge School of Business has a subscription which covers the following areas: management, marketing, accounting, economics and finance. Go to Your Access where you can either browse or search for a specific journal(s). Note: On-campus access only as Ithaca College IP address is required.
MLA International Bibliography Choose Advanced Search, then Directory of Periodicals. You can then look up the periodical you are interested in.
American Psychological Association (APA) Journal Statistics and Operations Data
-These PDFs provide information about manuscript rejection rates,
circulation data, publication lag time, and other journal statistics
Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE) -submission review policy, acceptance rate and indices.
objectively, funding agencies and tenure committees may attempt to
quantify both its quality and impact. Quantifying scholarly work is
fraught with danger, but the current emphasis on assessment in academe
suggests that such measures can only become more important. There are a
number of descriptive statistics associated with scholarly productivity.
These fall broadly into two categories: those that describe individual
researchers and those that describe journals.
Rating Researchers
Raw Citation Counts
One way to measure the impact of a paper is to simply count how manytimes it has been cited by others. This can be accomplished by finding
the paper in Google Scholar
and noting the "Cited by" value beneath the citation. Such numbers may
be added together, or perhaps averaged over a period of years, to
provide an informal assessment of scholarly productivity. Better yet,
use Google Scholar Citations
to keep a running list of your publications and their "cited by"
numbers. For more information on determining where, by whom, and how
often an article has been cited, see IC Library's guide on Cited Reference Searching.
Article comparing Google Scholar, Scopus and World of Science and their pros and cons.
Google Scholar as a new data source for citation analysis.
H-index
The h-index, created by Jorge E. Hirsh of the University of California, San Diego, is described by its creator as follows:A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np - h) papers have no more than h citations each.1In other words, if I have an h-index of 5, that means that my five
most-cited papers each have been cited five or more times. This can be
visualized by a graph, on which each point represents a paper. The
scholar's papers are ranked along the x-axis by decreasing
number of citing papers, while the actual number of citing papers is
shown by the point's position along the y-axis. The grey line
represents the equality of paper rank and number of citating articles.
The h-index is equal to the number of points above the grey line.
The value of h will depend on the database used to calculate it. 2
Thomson Reuter's Web of Science and Elsevier's Scopus (neither is
available at IC) offer automated tools for calculating this value. In
November of 2011, Google Scholar Citations became generally available. This will calculate h based on the Google Scholar database. An add-on for Firefox called the Scholar H-Index Calculator is also based on Google Scholar data.
Google Scholar Metrics includes lists of top-ranked journals by h index in a variety of subject areas.
Comparisons of h are only valid within a discipline, since
standards of productivity vary widely between fields. Researchers in the
life sciences, for instance, will generally have higher h values than those in physics.1
A large number of modifications to the h-index have been proposed, many attempting to correct for factors such as length of career and co-authorship.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed
a method to quantify the influence of a research article by making novel
use of its co-citation network to field-normalize the number of
citations it has received. The beta version of iCite, can be used to calculate the Relative Citation Ratios of articles listed in PubMed.
Rating Journals
Rightly or wrongly, the quality of a paper is sometimes judged by thereputation of the journal in which it is published. Various metrics
have been devised to describe the importance of a journal.
Impact Factor
The Impact Factor (IF) is a proprietary measure calculated annually by Thomson Reuters(formerly by ISI). This figure is based on how often papers published
in a given journal in the preceding two years are cited during the
current year. This number is divided by the number of "citable items"
published by that journal during the preceding two years to arrive at
the IF. Weaknesses of this metric include sensitivity to inflation
caused by extensive self-citation within a journal and by single,
highly-cited articles. For more information about the IF, see the essays of Dr. Eugene Garfield,
founder of ISI. Determining a journal's IF requires access to Thomson
Reuters Journal Citation Reports, not available at IC Library.
Eigenfactor
The eigenfactor is a more recent, and freely-available metric,devised at the University of Washington by Jevin West and Carl
Bergstrom.3
Where the IF counts all citations to a given article as being equal,
the eigenfactor weights citations based on the impact of the citing
journal. Its creators assert that it can be viewed as "a rough estimate
of how often a journal will be used by scholars." Eigenfactor values are
freely avialable at eigenfactor.org.
SCImago Journal Rank Indicator
The SCImago Journal Rank indicator (SJR) is another open-source metric.4It uses an algorithm similar to Google's PageRank. Currently, this
metric is only available for those journals covered in Elsevier's Scopus
database. Values may be found at scimagojr.com.
Journal Article Acceptance Rates
Locating acceptance ratesfor individual journals or for specific disciplines can be difficult,
yet is necessary information for promotion and tenure. Journals with
lower article-acceptance rates are frequently considered to be more prestigious and more “meritorious.”
The method of calculating acceptance rates varies among journals.
Some journals use all manuscripts received as a base for computing this
rate. Other journals allow the editor to choose which papers are sent
to reviewers and calculate the acceptance rate on those that are
reviewed that is less than the total manuscripts received. Also, many
editors do not maintain accurate records on this data and provide only a
rough estimate. Furthermore, the number of people associated with a
particular area of specialization influences the acceptance rate. If
only a few people can write papers in an area, it tends to increase the
journal's acceptance rate. Some journals will include the acceptance rate in the “information for authors” area of the print journal or on the home pages for the journal.
Some sources to find journal acceptance rates are as follows:
Cabell's Directories of Publishing Opportunities -Ithaca Collge School of Business has a subscription which covers the following areas: management, marketing, accounting, economics and finance. Go to Your Access where you can either browse or search for a specific journal(s). Note: On-campus access only as Ithaca College IP address is required.
MLA International Bibliography Choose Advanced Search, then Directory of Periodicals. You can then look up the periodical you are interested in.
American Psychological Association (APA) Journal Statistics and Operations Data
-These PDFs provide information about manuscript rejection rates,
circulation data, publication lag time, and other journal statistics
Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE) -submission review policy, acceptance rate and indices.
Cited Reference Searching
How to Find Cited References.References
1.
Hirsch, J.E. An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102, 16569 -16572 (2005).
2.
Meho, L.I. & Yang, K. Impact of data
sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science
versus scopus and google scholar. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58, 2105-2125 (2007).
sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science
versus scopus and google scholar. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58, 2105-2125 (2007).
3.
Bergstrom, C. Eigenfactor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals. College & Research Libraries News 68, (2007).
4.
González-Pereira, B., Guerrero-Bote, V.P. & Moya-Anegón, F. The SJR indicator: A new indicator of journals' scientific prestige.
Altmetrics are non-traditional, Social
Web-based measures of the reach and influence of scholarly output. Some
examples of altmetrics are downloads, bookmarks, blog posts, shares, and
citation indexes. Altmetrics data can be used to explain the amount and
type of online attention that items receive. According to the authors
of Meaningful Metrics, these
measures show the impact of a wider type of items beyond traditional
research journals (software, data sets, and slide decks, for example)
and can show areas of influence outside of disciplinary boundaries and
formal academic communities (through citations in public policy
documents and references in patents, learning objects, and press
coverage, for instance).
Wiley now makes altmetrics available for their fully open access
journals. Other scholarly publishers such as Elsevier and Sage also
offer article-level altmetrics, including comments and shares made by
readers via social media channels, blogs, newspapers, etc. Here's an
example from the ScienceDirect database:
When used with traditional, citation-based bibliometrics, altmetrics can
form a more complete and detailed picture of the impact of
scholarship. They can sometimes indicate the potential impact of
research on society or a field of study. Altmetrics can be especially
useful in discplines where journal articles are not the primary output.
Facuty can use altmetrics to
For Tenure and Promotion
The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics
Guide to Preparing a Dossier for Promotion or Tenure
University of Colorado Denver Medical School
Guidelines for Preparing and Reviewing Promotion and Tenure Dossiers 2017-18
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Guidelines for the Evaluation of Digital Scholarship in Art and Architectural History
College Art Association and the Society of Architectural Historians
Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media
Modern Language Association
In a CV
Recommendations for including altmetrics in a CV include providing
contextual information, such as percentiles, maps, and qualitative data.
Here's one example from the CV of Trevor A. Branch, Biology, University of Washington:
Additional examples can be found at What Are Altmetrics? and in the University of Maryland Bibliometrics and Altmetrics: Mesuring the Impact of Knowledge guide.
Altmetrics Tools
Impactstory
Provides a profile of the online impact of a researcher's work.
Altmetric Bookmarklet
Enables viewing article-level metrics.
PLOS Article Level Metrics
Tracks item-level views, saves, citations, recommendations, and discussions of scholarly output.
Web-based measures of the reach and influence of scholarly output. Some
examples of altmetrics are downloads, bookmarks, blog posts, shares, and
citation indexes. Altmetrics data can be used to explain the amount and
type of online attention that items receive. According to the authors
of Meaningful Metrics, these
measures show the impact of a wider type of items beyond traditional
research journals (software, data sets, and slide decks, for example)
and can show areas of influence outside of disciplinary boundaries and
formal academic communities (through citations in public policy
documents and references in patents, learning objects, and press
coverage, for instance).
Wiley now makes altmetrics available for their fully open access
journals. Other scholarly publishers such as Elsevier and Sage also
offer article-level altmetrics, including comments and shares made by
readers via social media channels, blogs, newspapers, etc. Here's an
example from the ScienceDirect database:
When used with traditional, citation-based bibliometrics, altmetrics can
form a more complete and detailed picture of the impact of
scholarship. They can sometimes indicate the potential impact of
research on society or a field of study. Altmetrics can be especially
useful in discplines where journal articles are not the primary output.
Facuty can use altmetrics to
- Determine who, where, and how their research is being used
- Quantify how their research is being used
- Spot potential collaborators in their field
- Show the influence of their work inside and outside their field of study and academia
- Learn what others think of their research
- Demonstrate successful outreach
- Pinpoint and filter other sources of importance
- Provide a context for their work
- Solicit research funding
- Identify publications to submit to
For Tenure and Promotion
The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics
Guide to Preparing a Dossier for Promotion or Tenure
University of Colorado Denver Medical School
Guidelines for Preparing and Reviewing Promotion and Tenure Dossiers 2017-18
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Guidelines for the Evaluation of Digital Scholarship in Art and Architectural History
College Art Association and the Society of Architectural Historians
Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media
Modern Language Association
In a CV
Recommendations for including altmetrics in a CV include providing
contextual information, such as percentiles, maps, and qualitative data.
Here's one example from the CV of Trevor A. Branch, Biology, University of Washington:
Additional examples can be found at What Are Altmetrics? and in the University of Maryland Bibliometrics and Altmetrics: Mesuring the Impact of Knowledge guide.
Altmetrics Tools
Impactstory
Provides a profile of the online impact of a researcher's work.
Altmetric Bookmarklet
Enables viewing article-level metrics.
PLOS Article Level Metrics
Tracks item-level views, saves, citations, recommendations, and discussions of scholarly output.
Assessing Scholarly Productivity: The Numbers Game
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