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Research Impact

Research impact refers to the demonstration of the reach and influence of a scholar's work, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures.
Article impact metrics measure how often an article is cited. Some newer tools also analyze the context of citations, indicating whether an article was cited to provide background, support a claim, or challenge a finding. Citation counts are commonly displayed in database search results and can be used for quantitative analysis. However, these metrics should be interpreted with caution and understood within the appropriate context, as various factors can influence citation counts and their significance.

Tools Quick Access

Key Considerations

  • Citation counts are available through various indexing and abstracting databases (e.g., “Cited by X articles”), but each database reflects only its own indexed content. No single source is comprehensive, so citation data will always be incomplete.
  • Citation patterns vary widely by field, making comparisons across disciplines unreliable.
  • Newer articles may appear under-cited due to limited time for citations to accumulate.
  • Articles may be cited or widely viewed for a variety of reasons. Some are cited as examples of flawed methods or controversial findings. High attention does not necessarily mean high scholarly value.

Measurements Explained

What are Web of Science (WoS) Citation Counts?

Citation counts in WOS are from the journals, books, and conference proceedings indexed, including:

Web of Science captures: Citation Count, Most Recent Citation, Highly Cited Paper, Hot Paper, Citation Classification, and Comparison Metrics panel. 

WoS Citation Count - Calculations

The following metrics can be found in the Web of Science UBC subscription. 

Metric Defined Calculated
Citation Count Shows how many times the article has been cited. The number of times the article has been cited by other articles in the WoS-included (see above) databases/indexes.
Highly Cited Paper A label applied to articles (including: regular scientific articles, review articles, proceedings papers, and research notes) in the top 1% by field and year based on citations in the past ten years. 

Essential Science Indicators - Highly Cited Papers
Hot Paper A label applied to articles (including: regular scientific articles, review articles, proceedings papers, and research notes) in the top 0.1% by field, published in the past two years and cited recently.

Essential Science Indicators - Hot Paper
Clarivate - Web of Science, Citation Reports
WoS Citation Counts - Source

Web of Science 

  • Web of Science Core Collection is a rich collection of citation indexes representing the citation connections between scholarly research articles found in most globally significant journals, books, and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences and art & humanities. Updated daily (Monday through Friday).
Limitations

  • May miss citations from books, conference proceedings, or non-English sources

  • Citation data is stronger for science journals. Coverage of arts, humanities, and social sciences is more limited, particularly for older publications.
  • Includes data only indexed with the WOS package (see... )
What are Scopus Citation Metrics?

Metrics in the Search Results

After running a search, each result displays a Cited by count on the right, showing how many times the article has been cited by other documents in Scopus. Hover over the Cited by number to preview citation data or click to view the full list of citing documents.

Scopus Citation Metrics - Calculation
 
Metric Definition Calculation
Total Citations The number of times an article has been cited by another publication. Number of Scopus-indexed citations received by the article.
Citations per Year Citation activity broken down by year. Number of Scopus-indexed citations received in a given year. 
Citation Benchmarking Article performance is measured by comparing the article with the "average article" within the same field or journal.  Percentile ranking that shows how the article’s citation count compares to similar documents in the same field and year.
Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) A normalized score where a value of 1.0 represents average performance. A score higher than 1.0 indicates above-average citation impact.

Field-Weighted Citation Impact is the ratio of the total citations actually received by the denominator’s output, and the total citations that would be expected based on the average of the subject field.

FWCI Calculation - Elsevier

 
Scopus Citation Metrics - Source

Scopus 

  • Scopus quickly finds relevant research, identifies experts and provides access to reliable data, metrics, and analytical tools. With over 25,100 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, Scopus delivers a comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social science, and arts and humanities. 
Limitations
  • Broader than Web of Science but still curated. Coverage skews toward STEM and recent publications (post-1996).

 

What are Google Scholar Cited By Metrics?

In Google Scholar, article impact is shown through the "Cited by" count listed below each search result. Clicking this number shows all works that cite the article.

Google Scholar Cited By - Calculation 

Google Scholar identifies scholarly content, through an indexing algorithm and automatically extracts bibliographic data, citations and other information from articles and uses it for ranking purposes. This means the "cited by" number for Google Scholar is not easily defined and can vary from other database sources significantly. 

Google Scholar, Publisher Support

 

Google Scholar Cited By - Source

Google Scholar

Limitations
  • Includes a wide range of sources without quality control, leading to potential duplication, inflated counts, and citations from non-scholarly materials.
  • Google Scholar offers limited citation analysis compared to Scopus or Web of Science.

 

What are Download Counts?

Download counts indicate the number of times the resources has been downloaded by a user. They are often available through platforms where research is shared, such as:

 
Limitations

  • Reflect interest or visibility, not scholarly quality or influence.

  • May be inflated by bots, repeated downloads, or public attention unrelated to academic value.
  • Do not indicate whether the work was read, used, or cited in research.

Many disciplinary databases will include article impact data.

Find a list of discipline-specific databases on the Research Guide for your topic. Note that these databases count only the citations to a work that occur in the database.  Citations in journals and books not indexed in the database are not included.

EBSCO Databases (View a list)

Not all EBSCO databases display citation counts, but many do, including PsycINFO. To see whether an EBSCO database includes citation counts, connect to the database, then look for Cited References at the top or under the More drop-down box at the top of the screen

Select Cited References and fill in the search boxes.

 

ProQuest Databases (View a list)

Citation counts appear on the result list and in the full record for each item.

 

Medline via Ovid ("Find citing articles")

 

PubMed Central (free online journal articles)

  • Citation counts are available for every item in PubMedCentral.
  • Select an item on a result list, then look for Cited by similar articles in PMC at right.
Limitations
  • Small or slow-moving fields may yield low citation counts even for high-quality work.