How is research measured?
There is no one ideal tool for tracking research. All tools have their strengths and weaknesses. Peer review is also important. ERA, for example, acknowledges that in some disciplines peer review rather than citation analysis is the preferred means of assessing research.
Citation analysis involves counting how many times a journal or an author has been cited. The implication is that important works are cited more often than others.
For more information
Mehlo, L. I. (2007). The rise and rise of citation analysis [Preprint] Retrieved May 18, 2011.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Peer Review Process
Authors of this Guide
Barbara Adamson
Tatum McPherson-Crowie
What are the types of measurements?
All citation measures have limitations. Various metrics attempt to compensate in different ways.
1) The Journal Impact Factor is the best known measure of a journal's overall output.
2) The h-index created by Hirsch in 2005 is probably the best known citation index for individual authors. It is an accepted measure of a researcher's overall scholarly output. The h-index was originally used for a single researcher but is now sometimes used for institutions and groups of researchers as well.
Examples of citation measurements:
- total number of papers
- total number of citations
- average number of citations per paper
- average number of citations per author
- average number of papers per author
- average number of citations per year
- Hirsch's h-index (the most widely used measure)
- Egghe's g-index to give more weight to highly cited articles
- Zhang's e-index to allow for excess citations
- the age-weighted citation rate
- the contemporary h-index to give more weight to recent articles
- variations on the h-index to compensate for multiple authors
Harzing, A.-W. (2011). Metrics. Retrieved May 18, 2011 from Publish or Perish
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