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Research Support: Measuring Research Impact

The library provides research support to all postgraduate students and researchers

Bibliometrics/ Citation Analysis

Bibliometrics 

In very simple terms, bibliometrics is a term used for data about publications, It is  a  metrics-based research assessment  tool used to assess research output, in other words, publication and citation data analysis. Citation analysis is based on the premise that if an academic shows good citation metrics, it is likely that they have made a significant impact on the field. The four main tools for performing a citation analysis are Web of Science, Scopus/SciVal,  and Google Scholar/Publish or Perish.

Web of Science

Use to search across a number of databases covering a range of subject areas. Provides references to journal articles, books, conference papers, patents, research data and other materials. 

Scopus

Gives references to journal articles, books, conference proceedings and patents in all subjects. Also offers extensive tools to analyse results, and measure impact for articles, journals and authors.

Scival 

SciVal is the research analytics tool for measuring metrics gathered from the Scopus dataset. Both SciVal and Scopus are Elsevier products and both offer quick, easy access to the research performance of over 8,500 research institutions and 220 nations worldwide.

 

 

Google Scholar/Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish is a citation analysis tool which uses Google Scholar citation data.  Google Scholar covers more books, theses, conference papers, technical reports and other academic publications than either Web of Science or Scopus. However, coverage in Google Scholar is uncontrolled and there is no definitive list of all publications that are included.

Citation analysis results from Publish or Perish favour those who have personally made their articles available online, for example through institutional or subject repositories. A new feature of Publish or Perish is that you can change the source data and use Microsoft Academic Search citation data instead of Google Scholar data.

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