Research Metrics & Scholarly Impact
What are Author Metrics?
Author metrics are ways in which one can determine that influence and productivity of an author or researcher. An author's impact is determined by many factors, including how often they are cited and in what types of journals they are cited. There are also non-traditional factors, including links to author's works on websites, types of press choosing to publish an author's work, and what respositories contain copies of an author's work.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowInterdisciplinary index primarily for the sciences and social sciences. Useful for forward citation searching. Need to export searches? Click "more..." below
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowSearch for scholarly documents across the web, with Find It @ IUPUI links. See our FAQ for setting up Google Scholar for off-campus use.
- Contact the Ruth Lilly Medical LibraryLibrarians are happy to help with author metrics.
Cited Reference Search
To determine how many times an author has been cited in other published works, try either Web of Science, Scopus, or Google Scholar.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowInterdisciplinary index primarily for the sciences and social sciences. Useful for forward citation searching. Need to export searches? Click "more..." below
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowInterdisciplinary index that provides citations for high impact journals. Useful for forward citation searching. (Does not support Internet Explorer as a browser)
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowSearch for scholarly documents across the web, with Find It @ IUPUI links. See our FAQ for setting up Google Scholar for off-campus use.
Determining an Author's Impact
- Metrics ToolkitThis is a resource built to help researchers and evaluators navigate the ever-changing research metrics landscape. The Metrics Toolkit includes 27 expert-written, time-saving summaries for the most popular research metrics including the Journal Impact Factor and Altmetric Attention Score.
- Harzing's Publish or PerishThe software program uses Google Scholar to retrieve and analyze academic citations to present statistics on citations, journal metrics, and author metrics.
- Becker's ModelThe model for assessment of research impact is a framework for tracking diffusion of research outputs and activities to loocate indicators that demonstrate evidence of biomedical research impact.
Hirsch or h-Index
The Hirsch index or h-Index measures the productivity and impact of a scholar’s published work, using the author’s most cited articles and the number of citations they have received in other publications. It is one way that people can quantify their impact on a field of study.
example of an author's h-index
Determining H-Index
- Scopus h-indexH-indices can be found on the Citation Overview page for an author. This link is a blog post explaining more about the Scopus h-index.
- Web of Science: Citation ReportH-indices can be found on the Citation Report page after an author search in Web of Science. For details, view this video from from Web of Science.
- Google Scholar CitationsYou can also use Google Scholar Citations to calculate your own H index. Sign up for a free account. Step-by-steps instructions are available after you log in. Google Scholar has been noted to produce inflated numbers because of its inclusion of non-scholarly content.
Limitations of H-Index
Your Author Profile
Take charge of your author metrics! This will allow you to keep track of your cited references and other metrics like your h-index.
- ORCID"Provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher."
- Google Scholar Citations OverviewIncludes FAQs about claiming and setting up an author profile in Google Scholar.
- Scopus Author ProfilesInformation on on claiming and managing an author profile in Scopus.