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Research Impact Metrics & Visibility

This guide, targeted towards faculty and researchers, provides an introduction to the various metrics used to measure scholarly research impact.

How is author impact measured?

Below are some research metrics that measure an author's impact:

h-index: Is based on a list of publications ranked in descending order by the Times Cited count. An index of h means that there are h papers that have each been cited at least h times.

G-index: Is an alternative to h-index, adds more weight to highly cited articles. Available through Publish or Perish. Was introduced in 2006 as "an improvement of the h-index of Hirsch to measure the global citation performance of a set of articles. If this set is ranked in decreasing order of the number of citations that they received, the g-index is the (unique) largest number such that the top g articles received (together) at least g2  citations [Egghe, L. (2006). Theory and practise of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69(1), 131-152. doi: 10.1007/s11192-006-01447].

i10-index: Is the number of publications with at least 10 citations. Used only by Google Scholar.

Author metrics depend on academic discipline, geography, (multi)authorship, age of researchers, time window, language, etc.

How to get author impact metrics using the below databases/tools?

In Scopus, select the Author tab:

  • Search for an author's name or researcher identified (ORCID or ResearcherID)
  • Select the name(s) from the results list
  • Click on View citation overview to see various metrics like citations and h-index
  • Click on View h-graph to see a visual representation of author metrics

Below is an example of an author's metrics in Scopus:  

In Web of Science, select the Author Search tab:

  • Search for an author's name (or variant forms)
  • Proceed to "Select Research Domain" or "Select Organization" (both steps are optional)
  • Click on "Create Citation Report" to see various metrics like citations and h-index

Below is an example of an author's metrics in Web of Science: 

In Google Scholar:

  • Search for an author's name
  • The author's profile should show at the top of the results list
  • Click on the name to see various metrics like citations, h-index and i10-index

Below is an example of an author's metrics in Google Scholar:

Publish or Perish, a free downloadable software for academic citation analysis, may be used to consult your g-index.

Below is an example of an author's metrics in Publish or Perish: