1. Introduction to Bibliometrics
College of Education
November 7, 2016

2. Cory Tucker, Head of Continuing Resources and Collections
John Novak, Head Acquisitions and Digital Scholarship CT

3. Workshop Goals
Provide an introduction to Bibliometrics and Altmetrics including:
journal impact factors
author level impact
article level impact
Bibliometrics measurements:
Journal Citation Report
Eigenfactor
Hirsch Index
SJR
Review resources available at UNLV Libraries which provide bibliometric information CT

4. What is Bibliometrics?
Bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of written publications, such as books or articles.
Basically….data about publications, or citation frequency
Variety of Bibliometrics CT

5. Impact Factors
Impact Factor is “a measure of the frequency with which the ‘average article’ in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period” (Morrison 12). Period can be 2 or 5 years.
The more cited a journal = more prestige. Ranking of a journal compared to other journals in same discipline important. JN
Applies to journals or a group of journals
it is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period. Journal impact factor applies only to a journal or groups of journals, but not to individual articles or individual researchers.
For example, Pediatrics has a 2006 impact factor of 5.012, which means that on average each of its 2004 and 2005 articles was cited times in 2006.
More cited=more prestige. But what does really mean? Why it’s important to compare this IF to others within the same discipline

6. Impact Factors: Issues
It is not clear whether the number of times a paper is cited measures its actual quality.
Some databases that calculate impact factors fail to incorporate publications including textbooks, handbooks and reference books.
Certain disciplines have low numbers of journals and usage. Therefore, one should only compare journals or researchers within the same discipline.
Review articles normally are cited more often and therefore can skew results.
Self-citing may also skew results.
Editorial policies can artificially inflate an impact factor. JN

7. Journal Citation Report (JCR)
The JCR provides quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing journals indexed in the Web of Knowledge
Used to locate “high-impact” journals for researchers to publish in and used in promotion determination for academics
Journals grouped according to their subject
Web dates back to 1994; Print/CD-ROM back to 1975 JN
Analyzes the bibliometric characteristics of the journals indexed in the Web of Science (368). Measures include total citations in a year to a particular journal, its impact and immediacy indexes, total articles published, and the half-life for citations. This resource is used frequently to locate “high-impact” journals for researchers to publish in or consult regularly, and is often used in promotion determination for academic scientists. Journals are grouped according to their subject area, so comparisons can easily be made within a discipline. JCR is available in Science and Social sciences editions. Web formats, titled JCR Web , date back to 1994; print, CD-ROM, and microfiche formats to as late as 1975.

8. Journal Citation Report (JCR) cont.
Journal inclusion bias: IF not good for journals published in developing world. 7,500 journals of estimated 20-25K covered.
Coverage excellent for hard sciences, less so for social sciences, worse for arts and humanities

9. Journal Citation Report (JCR)
Search for the following in the JCR - American Anthropologist
Impact Factors
Immediacy indexes
Journal Profiles
Comparing journals within subject areas
Go to the JCR and demonstrate a search for American Anthropologist
Go to JCR and full journal title=MIS Quarterly
Explain results
Click on journal for full picture
Journal Impact Factor - recall that JCR is past two years
5-year - better picture, Eigenfactor involved here
Self-cites - recall that one of the criticisms is gaming the citation system. How often does a journal cite itself.
Immediacy Index: The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published.
Journal Cited Half-Life: The median age of the articles that were cited in the JCR year. Half of a journal's cited articles were published more recently than the cited half-life. For example, in JCR 2001 the journal Crystal Research and Technology has a cited half-life of 7.0. That means that articles published in Crystal Research and Technology between (inclusive) account for 50% of all citations to articles from that journal in 2001.
Cited half-life figures may be useful to assist in collection management and archiving decisions. Dramatic changes in cited half-life over time may indicate a change in a journals
format. Studying the half-life data of the journals in a comparative study may indicate differences in format and publication history
9. Go to Web of Science and then do JCR from there - voila! management appears. Don’t know why.

10. Eigenfactor
Uses citation data to assess and track the influence of a journal in relation to other journals
Eigenfactor Metrics consists of the Eigenfactor score  and the Article Influence score
Calculations are based on the citations received over a 5-year period vs. 2 years in JCR.
Available free of charge on the web. [eigenfactor.org]. Also in the Journal Citation Report
Eigenfactor score: It is intended to reflect the influence and prestige of journals. Created to capture the value of a publication output vs. journal quality (for example the value of a single publication in a major journal vs. many publications in a minor journal). Calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals. References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation.
Article Influence score: Measures the average influence, per article, of the papers published in a journal (over the first five years after publication).

11. Eigenfactor: Disadvantages
•Limited to journals in the Web of Science
•Journals are assigned to a single category
Go to Eigenfactor.org
Search Journal Name - MIS Quarterly
Normalized Eignfactor is easiest to use - average journal is 1. So a score of 1.3 indicates the total influence of MIS Quarterly is slightly above the total influence of an average journal.
Article Influence score - Also average of 1 - Score of 3 can be interpreted as the average article in MIS quarterly has three times the influence of the mean article in the Journal Citation Reports

12. SCImago Journal & Country Rank
Developed from Elsevier's Scopus database
The SJR measures the influence of journals and accounts for both the number of citations received by the journal and the importance of the journals where the citations come from.
Available for free at and in Scopus  
1. Measure of scientific influence of journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where the citations come from. Alternative to Impact Factor
2. Journals are assigned to major thematic categories as well as to specific subject categories according to Scopus Classification. 
2. Can get information from Scopus or SJr site
3. Go to
4. search journal - MIS Quarterly
5. H Index is the journal’s number of articles (h) that have received at least h citations - basically the journal’s most cited papers and number of citations these articles have received in other publications.
5. search journal rankings - Business, Mgt Accounting

13. H-Index (Hirsch Index)
H-Index (Hirsch Index) - attempts to quantify the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a researcher.
Formula - number of papers with citation number ≥ h, e.g. an h index of 10 means a researcher published at least 10 papers that have been cited at least 10 times.
Use Web of Science, Scopus or Google Scholar CT
Attempts to measure the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a researcher
Laurie Jessup example in Scopus

14. h-index cont.
•Pros – considers the impacts of both journals and authors
•Cons
§cannot identify if citations are positive or negative
§h-index increases with age, so comparison of productivity of younger researchers is a problem
§Calculated in Scopus and does not include access to all of author’s publications CT

15. Altmetrics
Definition: “Set of methods based in the social web used to measure, track, and analyze scholarship” Understanding Altmetrics
Measures include the number of citations in social media sites, as well as open peer or crowd-based recommendations or reviews
PLOS (Public Library of Science), Altmetric.com, Plum Analytics, Scopus, Web of Science, GoogleScholar
JN - Altmetrics is a new field that complements the existing metrics we have been talking about.
Read definition. In other words, Altmetrics allows one to track digital scholarship as it is downloaded, viewed, liked, tweeted, bookmarked, and shared.
Characteristics of altmetrics
Inseperable from the Internet, for it derives from data related to the social web
Impact at the article level
Possible to receive quicker feedback on the impact of your article
Complements traditional metrics, not to be used in place of it.
Transparent - easier to see where the numbers derive from
Some vendors that offer comprehensive altmetrics PLOS - Public Library of Science
Altmetric.com
ImpactStory
Plum Analytics

16. Altmetrics in Action
Article “Is the Romantic-Sexual Kiss a Near Human Universal” by two UNLV faculty
Scopus example
Wiley example JN
Two subscription databases have begun incorporating altmetrics into their databases so that users (and the authors) can see the variety of the impact of their scholarship.
Both are powered by altmetric.com, but the results in what you see are a little different
Scopus is the article database, and you can see how only one citation here compared to the wealth of activity online
Wiley seems to have a richer integration with altmetric.com; here you see not only the donut (trademark) of altmetric, but here you can see the news and the actual twitter mentions of this article.
Also get the altmetric ranking from the wiley example

17. Digital Scholarship@UNLV
For faculty and graduate students at UNLV, a place to deposit, share and preserve your scholarship
John’s readership report (example of a altmetric dashboard)
Want to get your scholarship in here? Contact me or for more information.
Picture of the readership map here
For faculty and graduate students, if you have scholarship in the UNLV’s institutional repository, you can also get monthly reports. These monthly reports are also altmetrics.
I have a modest number of papers, but you can see how many times they were downloaded each month, from where, and how the user found it (via google etc).
Show the difference between a 30-day snapshot and all-time snapshot
Demonstrate referrers, readership map, and downloads as key metric.

18. ResearchGate, Academia.edu
Social Networking Platforms
Commercial Site
Business Model
Open Access?
Social Networking platforms whose primary aim is to connect researchers with common interests. Similar to Facebook or Linkedin for scholars. Encourage faculty to upload content, but oftentimes it is not in copyright permissions.
Both are commercial companies. Academia.edu domain name was registered before laws enacted that would prohibit this use.
Business Model - each company has raised a lot of money mil for Academia.edu and $35mil for ResearchGate. In other words, it is a business that will require at one point to turn a profit
Aggressive in terms of wanting your information - like facebook and getting your contacts
SNPs do not allow information sharing. Interested in controlling information.
IRs are committed to complete openness and re-use of data

19. Comparisons
Graph comes from UC web post - “A Social Networking Site is not an Open Access Repository”
ia.edu/2015/12/a-social- networking-site-is-not-an- open-access-repository/
Aggressive in terms of wanting your information - like facebook and getting your contacts
SNPs do not allow information sharing. Interested in controlling information.
IRs are committed to complete openness and re-use of data

20. Bibliometrics Sites used today
Eigenfactor -
Google Scholar -
Journal Citation Reports (JCR)*
SCImagojr -
SCOPUS* -
Web of Knowledge* -

21. For Further Information
Impact Factors Libguide (University of Washington) -
Robin Roemer & Rachel Borchardt. “From Bibliometrics to Altmetrics: a Changing Scholarly Landscape.” College and Research Libraries News

22. QUESTIONS?
Contact Information:
Cory Tucker, Head, Continuing Resources & Collections
John Novak, Head, Acquisitions and Digital Scholarship

23. Workshop Survey

24. Text of original announcement
This introduction to bibliometrics will cover a variety of measurements including journal impact factors, author level impact, and article level impact. The workshop will address specific measurements, such as the Journal Citation Report, Eigenfactor, Hirsch Index, and the SJR. There will also be a review of resources available at UNLV Libraries that provide bibliometric information.