Author Level Tools & Metrics

Citation Count

The Citation Count is a simple measurement for a particular article, journal or researcher. The citation count is the total number of times the article, journal, or researcher have been cited in other works. Typically high citation counts are associated with more influential works or authors. However, as with all citation-based measures, it is important to consider how self-citations or other challenges can impact this measurement.

h-index

The h-index measurement is used to measure an author’s influence and citations. The h-index is calculated by counting the number of publications that an author has been cited by others at least that same number of times. For example, an h-index of 4 means that an author has had 4 articles that have each received at least 4 citations. Likewise, an h-index of 11 means that an author has had 11 articles each cited at least cited 11 times. The h-index is beneficial as it is not skewed by few highly cited articles or many poorly cited articles. The h-index is provided by various sources, including Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar.

Maintaining a Scholarly Identity

An accurate and well managed online scholarly presence can be helpful in establishing your career and promoting your work. Primarily, it helps significantly reduce the number of items from the fourth quadrant unintentionally being associated with your work. In many parts of the world there are common names that can be erroneously associated with the wrong researcher. It may be necessary to disambiguate your name to ensure that only your work is associated with you. A managed identity can also help you to connect your work across multiple platforms and profiles, showcase your work and network with peers. Additionally, some publishers and funders require researchers to tie their work to a persistent identifier, such as an ORCiD ID.

ORCiD: Your Unique Researcher ID

ORCiD allows researchers to register a free, unique, persistent identifier. Claiming and using an ORCiD ID is an easy way to establish and manage your scholarly online presence.

• Think of it as a permanent digital name tag. It solves the problem of researchers having similar names or name variations.
• It's a free, unique identifier. This ensures your work is always correctly attributed to you, regardless of name changes or institutional affiliations.
• It's widely used. Major publishers, funders, and universities use ORCID, streamlining manuscript and grant submissions.
• You may need it. Many publishers and funders now require ORCID IDs, so having one is increasingly essential.
• It simplifies your workflow. By linking your ORCID to your publications, grants, and other research outputs, you create a comprehensive and easily accessible record of your work.

From Chapter 11 Scholarly Identity in Navigating the Research Lifecycle for the Modern Researcher Copyright © 2022 (1st Edition) by Brianna Buljung, Emily Bongiovanni and Ye Li is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.