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Author metrics

What are author metrics?

Author metrics are measurements or benchmarks which assist in demonstrating your research impact. Common metrics include:

  • Volume of publications and citation counts
  • Performance compared to others in your field
  • Journal quartile rankings
  • H-index

Citation rates can be affected by:

  • Type of publication and language
  • Refutation and self-citations
  • Subject area you publish in
  • Publication schedule and journal reputation

Key sources

For other measures of impact including social media, new media and industry impact see:

Endorsed profiles

All academic staff should have the following three author identifiers.

This assists with author disambiguation by linking research outputs to the correct author, reducing administrative burden, while ensuring data accuracy and discoverability of research. Also where possible publish under a consistent name.

 

What is it?

ORCiD

A persistent identifier which is independent and globally recognised. Often required by publishers and grant bodies. Create an ORCiD and authorise it with UniSA at https://orcid.unisa.edu.au

Show your whole of career publications and link other profiles like your Scopus Author ID, Web of Science Researcher profile and staff homepage.

Top tips

Scopus Author ID

Is automatically generated when two or more of your publications are indexed in Scopus (Elsevier)

Provides publication and author metrics. Link your profile with ORCiD.

Web of Science Researcher Profile

One or more author profiles are automatically generated with a ResearcherID, when your publications are indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate). Claim all authors profiles generated and then create your official Web of Science Researcher Profile.

Provides publication and author metrics, and tracks editorial board memberships and peer review. Sync your profile with ORCiD to update easily.

Staff homepage badges

To add your ORCiD, Scopus Author ID and ResearcherID badges contact:

Web of Science Researcher profile

Check and claim any automatically generated author profiles. Then create your Web of Science Researcher profile for accurate metrics.

Key steps

  1. Create an personal account and login (top right)
  2. Select the Researchers option
  3. Search by family name and initial (Name search) or ORCiD

Show a Web of Science author identifier search using an ORCiD

  1. Open relevant author profiles from the results
  2. Check your publications and then Claim my record
  3. Multiple profiles? Select each and View as combined record
  4. Open My Web of Science (left menu)
  5. Select Create to create your official Web of Science Researcher profile - you will be assigned a unique ResearcherID
  6. Edit to add your publications

Top tips

  • Check regularly and add any newly indexed publications
  • Multiple profiles? If not claimed, merge using Merge Records

In depth help

Scopus Author ID

Check to see if you have an Scopus Author ID which is automatically generated. If you have multiple profiles request to merge these.

Key steps

  1. Create a personal account or log into your Scopus account
  2. Select the Author option
  3. Search by author name or ORCiD
    Author search example in Scopus using ORCiD.
     
  4. From the results list select your author profile
  5. Check for:
    • Potential author matches and request to merge with author
    • your publication list and Edit profile to make changes
  6. Link with your ORCiD using the Connect to ORCiD function

In depth help

Cite counts on Staff Home Pages

Cite counts display on Staff Home Pages when the output has been cited one or more times in a database. Cite counts from Web of Science and Scopus are refreshed daily as part of a scheduled process. Altmetric scores are refreshed around May and November. BIP (Business Intelligence and Planning) manage the University’s Altmetric subscription.

Hot and highly cited papers

In your Web of Science Researcher profile any highly cited papers and hot papers are listed in the research outputs record under Citation network. Highly cited papers also appear under the Awards section.

What are these?

Hot Paper - flame icon

 

A paper published in the past two years that received a number of citations in the most recent two-month period that places it in the top 0.1% of papers in the same field.
Highly Cited Paper - trophy icon A paper that  belongs to the top 1% of papers in a research field published in a specified year. The 1% is determined by the highly cited threshold calculated for the research field in the specified year.

Image shows an highly cited paper indicator.  Image shows a hot paper indicator.

Definitions from

Other metrics

Some subject databases include citation counts and downloads for individual publications.

These citation counts may be drawn from one database or multiple databases on the same platform. For example, many databases available via the ProQuest platform include times cited counts drawn from the complete suite of ProQuest databases.