Research Impact Challenge: Challenge 15: Follow that Research(er): Tracking the Impact of an Author or Citation

Challenge Fifteen
Follow that Research(er):
Tracking the Impact of an Author or Citation 

Citation  Tracking (CT) looks at the number of times that a particular author or article has been cited (aka referenced) in the bibliographies of other works. Large numbers are associated with greater impact and influence.

In this Challenge, you’ll discover how to determine article and author level citation counts on Web of Science and Google Scholar.

This session will be lead by Sally Taylor, Reference Librarian, Woodward Library.

The Research Impact Challenges Bank is a set of simple online activities to help you learn and apply concepts about building your online academic profile, connecting with other researchers, keeping informed of research, discoverability and access to resources, and research metrics & analysis.

 Step 1   Select a Challenge

 Step 2   Complete a Challenge

 Step 3   Share Your Response

To complete the Track the Impact of an Author or Citation on Web of Science or Track the Impact of an Author or Citation on Google Scholar challenge and other Tracking a Scholar challenges, go to the Research Challenge Bank.

This Challenge is adapted under a CC-BY 4.0 license from the The 30-Day Impact Challenge: The Ultimate Guide to Raising the Profile of Your Research eBook published by Impactstory.org and authored by Stacy Konkiel.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In this Challenge, you'll use Google Scholar and/or Web of Science Core Collection to determine citation counts for a specific article or author and to set up alerts to track them.

Tracking an Article

Step 1

1. Go to Google Scholar and find a specific article.
2. Click on Cited By to see other articles that have cited the specific article.
3. Click on Create Alert and enter your email address to be notified when the specific article is cited.

Step 2

1. Go to Web of Science Core Collection and find a specific article. Tip: select Title in the drop-down list.
2. Click on the article title in the results list.
3. Click on Times Cited to see other articles that have cited the specific article.
4. Click on Create Citation Alert to be notified when the specific article is cited. Note: you will need to register for an account.

Tracking an Author

Step 3

1. Go to Google Scholar and use the Advanced Search to find an author. Tip: use the field Return articles authored by.
2. Select the appropriate User Profile to ensure you have the correct author and to see the person's articles and citations.
3. Click on Follow and select Follow new citations to be notified when one of your author's articles has been cited. Note: select Follow new articles if you'd like to be notified when your author has published new articles.

Step 4

1. Go to Web of Science Core Collection and select Author Search (instead of Basic Search).
2. Follow the prompts to enter the Author's last name and initials (and any variants), Research Domain and Organization.
3. Click on Record Sets to ensure you have the correct author.
4. Click on Citation Report to see the person's articles and citations.