Guides: Research Impact: Promoting and Measuring: Article Metrics

Reference Shelf

Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level
Hutchins BI, Yuan X, Anderson JM, Santangelo GM.
PLoS Biol. 2016 Sep 6;14(9):e1002541. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002541.
eCollection 2016 Sep. PMID: 27599104; PMCID: PMC5012559

Common Article Metrics

Citation Count: This is a simple summation of the number of citations for each article. You can find this number within Web of Science, Dimensions, Google Scholar, and The Lens.

Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): Used by the National Institutes of Health, the RCR is a field-normalized metric. "The RCR is calculated by dividing the number of citations a paper received by the average number of citations an article usually receives in that field. That number is then benchmarked against the median RCR for all NIH-funded papers."

Other Metrics from Web of Science: Highly Cited Papers OR Hot Papers: Learn more about Hot Papers; Learn more about Highly Cited Papers.

Caveats

Numbers will be inconsistent based on the database/resource you are using to calculate.
Depending on the field/discipline, it can take a some for a publication to pick up citations.
Citation counts are typically captured from published resources, so gathering citations from white papers, preprints, and other unpublished materials. might be more complicated.

Finding Article Metrics

Web of Science Core Collection
To find the article citation count ("Times Cited: [N]"), go to Web of Science and search for the article title or author name. Times Cited will be on the right of each article.
Large Collection
1970-Present
Updated Daily
InCites Essential Science Indicators
Analytical tool for identify top-performing research articles based on journal article citation data. Examines the research performance by institution, individual author and other metrics. Added functionality available with personal account.
Large Collection.
2009-Present.
Updated bi-monthly
Google Scholar
To find the citation count ("Cited by [N]") for each article, search for the article title within Google Scholar. The number and link to each citation will be below the article result.
Large Collection.
Updated Daily.
2004-Present
F1000Research
Search for articles with select metrics which includes the Faculty Opinions Score. Learn more about the Score here. Personal account is required.
- Select 'Register for Free Access'
- Follow directions to register for account
Large Collection
1866-Present
Updated daily

iCite
This resource, provided by NIH, will calculate the Relative Citation Ratio based on article PMIDs.
Dimensions
Provided by the company that includes Altmetric Explorer, this is a freely available database of publications (and more) that can also display basic level metrics and altmetrics for researchers and their publications.
The Lens
To find article citation metrics within The Lens:
1. Search for an article title
2. To the right of the "Summary" tab, click on the "Citing Works" tab
3. Click the button that reads "View articles in Scholar Search"
4. On the next page, you'll find a full list of citing works
5. Off to the right, click the Analytics tab to visualizations (various charts and tables)

The Graduate Health & Life Sciences Research Library at Georgetown University Medical Center

Research Impact: Promoting and Measuring

Reference Shelf

Common Article Metrics

Caveats

Finding Article Metrics