Publication Metrics: Web of Science Author Metrics

Author metrics are numbers that provide information on a scholar's publication output, reach, and impact. These metrics include:

1. the author's h-index
2. Citation counts to articles by the author, i.e., citation analysis
3. The number of citing articles

Citation counts for authors listed in Web of Science go back several years. To find them:

1. Choose Authors
2. If you have an ORCID ID or Web of Science ResearcherID for the author, use one of those to search; doing so will give you only the author you are looking for.
3. If you do not have an ORCID ID or Web of Science ResearcherID, enter the author's last name and first initial, if you have it. Some names are really common, so if you have an institutional affiliation, enter it, and click on Search.
4. Click on the name of the author you are interested in.
5. This displays an author profile which includes the author's h-index, number of documents in Web of Science by that author, and total citations to that author's works..

These results can be exported and/or analyzed. Analyzing within Web of Science provides a graph of the results which can provide you with a variety of information about the author that can be narrowed or sorted in a number of ways.

The default search in Web of Science is the Documents search; choose the Researcher tab to search for an author. You can search by name or author identifiers such as Web of Science ResearcherID or ORCID ID. If you search a name that is really common, you'll see options to narrow it by country and organization, if needed the author can be further narrowed by choosing author name, organization, or subject categories.

Clicking on the resulting author record will display the following information about that author:

1. Affiliation
2. Alternative names the author may have published under
3. h-index: The h-index is based on the Web of Science Core Collection citations of the publications.       
4. A summary of times cited
5. A number for citing articles 
6. A number for journals that have been verified as peer reviewed
7. A list of publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection: this list can be exported and analyzed.

To use Publons, you must create an account; click on Register at the top right to do so. Publons is for individual researchers to keep track of their publication output and metrics. Within Publons, you can:

1. View your Web of Science publication and peer review metrics.
2. Track citations to your work
3. Manage your review activities
4. Import your publications
5. Learn to peer review
6. Get a Web of Science ResearcherID
7. Browse for researchers, journals, publications, institutions, and countries or regions
8. Connect with communities