1. Citation Metrics
Procedures, Progress & Pitfalls
Linda Galloway
RCSC Unit Meeting
April 5, 2012

2. Scopus or Web of Science??
Scopus Web of Science
SciVerse Scopus is the world’s largest abstract Web of Science consists of nine databases
and citation database of peer-reviewed containing information gathered from
thousands of scholarly journals, books, book
literature. series, reports, conferences, and more.
• Contains 46 million records, 70% with
abstracts • It fully covers over 12,000 major journals.
• Nearly 19,500 titles from 5,000 publishers • Create a visual representation of citation
worldwide relationships with Citation Mapping
• Capture citation activity and trends
• Includes over 4.6 million conference graphically with Citation Report
papers • Use the Analyze Tool to identify trends
• Provides 100% Medline coverage and patterns
Our subscription:
Subscription includes:
• Science Citation Index Expanded (1899-
• 23 million records with references back to present)
1996 (of which 78% include references). • Social Sciences Citation Index (1898-
• 21 million records pre-1996 which go back present)
as far as 1823. • Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-
present)
Linda Galloway

3. Other databases?
Tasha received information that many of Ebsco
& PQ databases offer citation analyses…I have
no familiarity with these services.
Google Scholar is poised to become a player in
this arena – Google Scholar Profiles are easy to
use and harvest data automatically.
Google Scholar Metrics for Publications –
released 4/1/2012
Linda Galloway

4. Linda Galloway

5. Why offer this service?
• Build relationships with faculty & department chairs
• Helps librarian learn about faculty members’
research areas
• Assist in the evaluation of departments, programs
and faculty
• Really use the tools available to us
• Fun and interesting
• Sometimes not fun & stressful!
Linda Galloway

6. Part One
Attempt to assess the scholarly impact of a
department (at Chair’s request).
If you plan to use Scopus, as I do, create an
account to save your work….
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7. Publication & Citation Counts
For a department…
1. Decide on time frame to use – I use past year
(2011), past 5 years (2007-2011) and past 10
years (2002-2011).
2. Create & save a search (by affiliation):
(AF-ID("Syracuse University" 60030551) OR AF-
ID("University Syracuse" 105277074) OR AF-
ID("Syracuse University London Centre" 101417035))
AND ((dept* W/1 bio*) OR ("life science* complex")
OR (department W/1 biology))
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8. Search Alerts….
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9. Edit search with time frame:
(AF-ID("Syracuse University" 60030551) OR AF-
ID("University Syracuse" 105277074) OR AF-
ID("Syracuse University London Centre" 101417035))
AND ((dept* W/1 bio*) OR ("life science* complex") OR
(Department W/1 Biology)) AND PUBYEAR IS 2010
Scopus has many help screens with useful
information…
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10. Check to make sure all pubs retrieved
are from SU authors (may be grad
students, postdocs, faculty, etc.)
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11. Select correct pubs and ‘View Citation
Overview’
Save the list, so you can
work with the data later:
i.e. ‘Biology ‘2007
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12. Export to RefWorks
• I also export the list of articles to a RefWorks
account and share the link with faculty.
• Ask faculty to check to make sure all their
publications are represented for each
publication year.
• Send a summary report to chair
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13. Linda Galloway

14. Further work:
• Can analyze the journal impact factors where
author’s most frequently publish.
• Can compare publication rates, citation counts
and impact factors to peer institutions.
• Many more things…
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15. Cited Reference Search
in
Scopus

16. Choose ‘Author Search’ tab
Enter author’s name in in
correct format. In most
cases, do not select ‘exact
matches’.

17. Scopus groups authors
to aid in
disambiguation. In this
example, both grouped
authors are the same
person.

18. Select author(s) and
choose
‘Show Documents’

19. Select only those articles
attributable to author

20. View Citation
Overview

21. Change date range, if
desired

22. What to do if you have more than one author profile in Scopus….

23. Select YOUR author profiles – you may need to review all
the articles associated with each author.

24. Request to merge authors
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28. Merge process may take up to 3 weeks
– but it’s in your best interest to have
only one profile.

29. Pitfalls
• Depending on the data you retrieve, expect
some unhappy customers…
• Be prepared to defend your data and methods
• Pre-emptively communicate how and why you
collected the information you did
• Stay strong!
Linda Galloway

30. Altmetrics
altmetrics is the creation and study of new metrics based
on the Social Web for analyzing, and informing
scholarship. www.altmetrics.org
• Supplement to traditional peer-reviewed metrics
• Looks at downloads & click-through rates
• “Crowdsource peer-review”
• Many tools currently available:
– Google Scholar Profile/citations
– Mendeley
– Total-Impact
– ReaderMeter
– Plus, many more!
Linda Galloway

31. Questions??
• Linda Galloway, galloway@syr.edu or
315-443-9766
• SciVerse/Scopus Citation Overview help:
http://help.scopus.com
Linda Galloway Syracuse University Library April2012