Skip to Main Content
The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. More

Scholar Identity and Research Impact

This guide describes the digital scholarship landscape, how to build and manage your research identity, and the different methods and tools for tracking the impact of scholarship.

Citation Metrics

Citation metrics are used in indicators that assess the outcome and impact of research output. Citation counts are the number of times a work has been cited in others' works. Beyond basic counts, it can be used to inform the frequency of co-citing relationships, and total counts and frequency can show impact of an author in a discipline, topic or over time. 

Examples of indicators that use citations include:

  • Average citation impact (citations per paper) normalized for field, year and document type (metric from Scopus)
  • Percentage of field-weighted citation index per document in the top 1% based on citations by field, year, and document type (metric from SciVal)

Field-weighted calculations are averages adjusted for field-citing behaviours. These normalized metrics are the preferred calculations that can be used for comparisons. These calculations are proprietary to the publisher. For example, field-weighted citation index (FWCI) is available only in Elsevier's products Scopus and SciVal.

Other work-related counts include views, downloads, and mentions in various sources. If the works are open access, then these metrics are considered 'altmetrics'. For more information on these types, see Alternative Metrics.

 

SOURCES FOR CITATION METRICS

Major Tools

Search results of documents have the number of citations beside each title. More information about the citing documents is found in the Citation Report.

Search results of documents have the number of citations beside each title. More information about the citing documents is found by clicking the citation count and then selecting 'Analyze search results'.

Many metrics with citation counts are used throughout but Overview and Benchmarking modules have various counts (citations, views, topic, media etc.) and their related calculations.

Using open sources the search function is free for patents, scholarly works, and profiles. Institutional toolkits are available by subscription and offers institutional dashboards, reporting and profiles.