Sources of Metrics | Library | The University of Aberdeen

Sources of Metrics

There are many available sources that provide research metrics. You may choose the one to use depending on the question you want to answer and on your discipline. We provide here a summary of the most common used sources of metrics.

Subscription Databases

Web of Science , Scopus , Dimensions are among the largest subscription databases which provide bibliometric figures and include data from thousands of peer reviewed sources. These provide citations, collaborations, publication sources, authors affiliations and many other measures.

The University of Aberdeen subscribes to Web of Science and uses InCites Analytics (Clarivate) as metrics source and benchmarking tool.

Limitations:

Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions are not inclusive: journal publications are better represented than books, book chapters and conference proceedings. This disadvantages subject areas where books and/or conference papers are primary form of research outputs, such as arts and humanities, and must be considered when analysing metrics of different subjects.
Data coverage: the resources included differs according to the database, as consequence metrics for authors, articles and institutions might vary depending on which database is used.
Data accuracy: it might happen that publications are attributed to the wrong author. This may occur more frequently when an author uses different names (e.g. when the second name/s is used inconsistently) in different publications. Authors that spot mistakes in their publication record can request an edit to the provider. The best way to minimise such mistakes is for researchers to have an ORCID ID linked to their online research profiles.

Open Source Database

OpenAlex is a free and open source bibliographic database first announced in 2021.

It catalogues metadata for approximately 243 million scholalry publications, making it the second largest database after Google Scholar. It provides a plethora of metrics including document citations, institutional affiliations, author contributions, research topics, open access statuses and more.

Advantages:

OpenAlex is open source, which means users can download and reuse data and codes without cost or subscription.
Its extensive coverage distinguishes it, particularly in Art and Humanities subjects often underrepresented in subscription databases.

Limitations:

The quality and reliability of some content might vary, given potentially weaker vetting processes compared to subscription databases.

Google Scholar

Google scholar is a very popular bibliometric tool among researchers. It uses web-based sources to track an author's publications and citations. Google scholar includes also citations from non peer-reviewed sources in an author's profile. Therefore, usually the citation count in google scholar is higher than in other metric sources, such as subscription databases.

Limitations:

Transparency: it is not clear which criteria are used to include resources in the google scholar database
Data accuracy: often publications are attributed to the wrong author, in particular if the author has a popular surname.
Duplicate copies of publications can result in multiple entries in the database.