Bibliometrics is concerned with the analysis of research based on citation counts and patterns. The measures used are also commonly referred to as bibliometrics, or citation metrics. Bibliometrics can be used to evaluate the influence of an individual research output, such as a journal article, or a collection of research outputs, such as all works by a particular author, research group or institution. View the UCL bibliometrics policy and the wider context.
This guide has been updated to reflect the UCL and UK perspective on the subject. The guide was originally based on the work by Robin Kear at the University of Pittsburg Library Service. If you reuse the content, please acknowledge both UCL IOE and Pittsburg Library Service.
This guide provides an overview on bibliometrics. It includes information on which of the databases contain citation measures that can be used to gage either author, article or journal impact.
These measures can be helpful when evaluating information e.g. whether the author is an authority in their field and their impact on other scholars (author impact) or whether an article is deemed to be the 'classic' read (article impact). Researchers can also use citation tools to strategically plan where they could publish by considering high-impact journals.
A number of tools are available to analyse impact. These are included in this guide, together with alternative or 'altmetrics' which gage impact of scholarly works on the social web.