How have my publications performed overall?
There are a few different ways that the citation count for a set of publications - for example, the output of an individual author, - can be aggregated. The simplest measure is the average (mean) number of citations per article. However, since citation behavior varies according to academic discipline, using the average (mean) weighted citation impact of a set of articles can help to provide an indicator that is more comparable between subject areas, and which takes into account how long different publications have been available. In all cases, a value of one represents performance at par with world average, values above one are considered above average, and values below one are considered below average. A value of two represents performance at twice the world average.
Another popular measure of an author's research impact is the h-index. This metric takes into account both the number of items published, and the number of citations to this total output. This metric can be applied to any set of publications, but is usually calculated for individual authors. It is easiest explained by example: an h-index of 14 means that the within the total set of items, there are 14 publications that have been cited 14 or more times. Because of differences in citation behavior, care should be taken when comparing h-index figures for authors working in different disciplines; also, because more recent publications are less likely to be cited than older ones, the h-index is often not a good indicator of the performance of early-career scholars.
NOTE: To ensure that your total publication output is correctly identified when calculating these indicators, it is recommended that you create author identifiers/profiles for the various tools. This allows you to associate variant forms of your name that may appear in publication records with a single ID. See the Author IDs section of this guide for more information.
Below are directions for looking up average citations, the h-index, and other aggregate research performance measures using three different sets of tools available to University of Wyoming-affiliated patrons.
How do I calculate metrics for my publications?
Instructions for calculating metrics using Scopus
Instructions for calculating metrics using Web of Science and InCites
Instructions for calculating metrics using Google Scholar and Publish or Perish