Below is a glossary of terms which relate to traditional metrics. Help with using sources and tools for metrics can be found on the Training page
Article Influence Score - determines the average influence of a journal. This metric is essentially the Eigenfactor Score divided by the number of articles published in the 5-year window. Source/tools: Journal Citation Reports
Article level metrics - metrics associated with a single journal article
Author metrics - used to track how often an author is cited and demonstrate the reach and impact of their work.
CiteScore - journal metric which measures average citations received per document published in the journal over 4 years. This metric is strongly influenced by the discipline of the journal. Source/tools: Scopus
Citation - description of a cited source. These contain information such as author’s name, title, publisher, date of publication.
Citation Analysis - Examination of a set of citations to establish patterns and frequency. SciVal and Web of Science offer tools for citation analysis, these identify metrics and trends relating to authors, publications, institutions and collaborations.
Citation Index - an index or database which tracks citations (or references) between research outputs. Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus measure how often publications have been cited and gives details of those citing it.
Eigenfactor Score - a journal-level metric that is based on the number of times articles published in the journal in the last five years have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) year. Scores are weighted by the perceived influence/importance of the citing journal. Sources/Tools: Web of Science Core Collection
Field-weighted citation index (FWCI) - article level metric which takes into account the differences in research behaviour across disciplines. Indicates how the number of citations received by the output compares with the average number of similar outputs. Source/tools: Scopus/SciVal
h-index - a typical measure of a researcher's output, based on citation count. This is the number of articles (h) which have received (h) or more citations. The h-index is a flawed indicator of the quality and quantity of an individual’s research and has come under criticism by some funders, including UKRI. Source/tools: Scopus/SciVal
h5-index - version of the h-index which limits it to articles published in the last 5 years. Source/tools: SciVal
Journal Citation Reports - a citation-based journal ranking resource updated annually by Clarivate: https://jcr.clarivate.com
Journal Impact Factor - the impact factor of a journal is a quantitative tool for evaluating the relative importance of a journal. It is a measure of the frequency with which its published papers are cited up to two years after publication. This metric is strongly affected by the discipline of the journal. Source/tools: Journal Citation Reports
Journal metric - Journal metrics measure, compare, and often rank research and scholarly publications.
Normalisation - otherwise know as 'field-weighting' or 'field-normalisation', this corrects citation differences between fields, such as differences in publication, collaboration and citation practice, by including indicators which take into account the context of the citation. Results are rescaled according to subject discipline or time-frame. Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and Field-Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) use field-weighted indicators. More information on normalisation is available on the Responsible Metrics guide.
Outputs in Top Percentiles - demonstrates the extent to which a research entity's (author, group, or institution) documents are present in the most-cited percentiles of a data universe. Source/tools: SciVal
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) - journal metric which, alongside tracking the number of citations received by a journal, also takes into account the importance or prestige of the journals that the citations came from. Source/Tools: Scopus
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) - compares impact metrics across different academic subjects. Works by calculating the ratio between a journal's citation count per paper and the citation potential of a journal's subject field. Source/Tools: Scopus