Skip to Main Content

Measuring Research Impact and Quality

Resources for compiling citation counts

  • There are many resources that record citation counts for published material. None are considered comprehensive.
  • Recent research indicates the number of uncited papers is less than 10% in most scientific fields. Nature 52 (December 14, 2017): 162-164

Scopus

  • Times cited counts for journal articles published from 1996 to date.  Older material back to 1970 is being added .
  • Coverage is strongest for the sciences and social sciences, but humanities publications are also included. 
  • Indexes 21,800 peer-reviewed journals.
  • Book coverage back to 2013.
Scopus Citation Overview
  • Search by author and then select the author's name to view the Scopus author profile which tracks research output and citation activity for an individual.
  • Click Export all located at the top of the list of the author's publications and select file type CSV.
  • Open the CSV file.  The cited by counts are in column M.
Secondary documents in Scopus

Secondary documents are items that are not indexed by Scopus, but are extracted from references lists for the items indexed by Scopus.

  • To view these non-Scopus references, click the View secondary documents link above your search results for either an author or topic.
  • The non-Scopus document titles appear in gray text and are indicated by this icon
  • Citation counts are provided for these secondary documents.
  • Secondary documents include items that have been cited incorrectly by the citing article.

Web of Science

  • Times cited counts for journal articles back to 1900 (science), back to 1956 (social sciences) and back to1975 (humanities).
  • Coverage is strongest for the sciences and social sciences, but selected humanities publications are included.
  • Indexes over 12,000 scholarly and technical journals.
  • Book coverage back to 2005.
     
Web of Science citation report
  • Conduct an author search
  • Check off the author's name listed under Researcher Profiles in the left column of the search results page and then select Refine
  • Select the Citation Report button located above the list of publications
  • Select Export Full Report located on the right side of the page near the top
Web of Science cited reference search
  • Conduct a Cited Reference Search to find citations and times cited counts for items not indexed by Web of Science.
  • Do a Cited Reference Search to find citations and times cited counts for items indexed by Web of Science before 1990.
  • Results of a Cited Reference Search will also provide times cited counts for items that have been cited incorrectly by the citing article.

Google Scholar

Dimensions

Dimensions Citation Report

  1. Search by author name
  2. Select Researcher in the left column
  3. Check off the author's name and then select Limit to
  4. Select Export at the top, right side of the page
  5. Export full record in file format XLSX-Excel
  6. You will receive an email notice with a link to download the export normally within a few minutes.
  7. The Times Cited counts are in column AO of the spreadsheet

Additional sources for citation counts

Many subject specialized databases provide times cited information.  Below are some examples.  See the  Databases by Subject listings to check and see if a database in your discipline offers times cited information.

Google Books

Relative citation ratio

Relative Citation Ratio (RCR) is a new metric that quantifies and compares the influence of a scientific article.

"... it works by counting an article’s network of citations, then weighting the result by using a comparison group within the article’s field. The developers of relative citation ratio said its methodology therefore better reflects how experts assess the influence of a paper, rather than just its total number of citations.”  Chronicle of Higher Education Sept. 7, 2016