Author metrics

Citation indexes are the most common method of evaluating the impact of research publication by individual authors. Each citation source produces slightly different results, depending on its subject content and time period coverage.  Therefore, multiple sources should be used to judge the true impact of an author's work.

• If the database does not recommend a particular author search method, search using different forms of the cited author's name (initials, first and last names, etc.)

• If the author you're searching for is second or third author, search by the lead author to locate the cited references.

• Determining the transcription of author names in foreign languages and non-Roman script in each database may require extra effort.

Tools you can use

• Web of Science
  Web of Science is a citation database on the Web of Knowledge platform from Thomson Reuters. Access Web of Science tutorials to learn how to perform Cited Reference Searching, produce citation reports including H-index results, and more.

• Scopus
  Scopus is a citation database from Elsevier. Choose the author search tab to obtain a citation overview, and set up citation alerts for authors and documents.

• Publish or Perish
  Publish or Perish is a software program developed to analyze citations in Google Scholar. It may be useful for areas not well covered by the Web of Science or Scopus.

In addition to citations, you should include esteem measures in any grant or promotion application. These can include invitations to speak at conferences; involvement in committees, organizations or societies; editor or reviewer of a journal; awards or rankings in prestigious lists; media coverage of your research in the popular press; consultation work informing public policy decisions; issued patents or standards work.

Benefits for researchers

In using your ORCID iD, you will benefit in the following ways:

• You will be  disambiguated from researchers with similar names 
• Your works will be properly attributed to you even if information about changes, including your name and affiliation
• You will save time and reduce administrative burden when you authorize research organizations to automatically publish information to your ORCID record

Visit ORCID's Benefits for Researchers webpage for a completed list of benefits, help topics and video tutorials. 

Get started with your ORCID iD today!

1. Register for your ORCID identifier in under 30 seconds
2. Add information to your ORCID record by importing works from other systems
3. Manage your record by changing your visibility setting and changing the preferred language setting
4. Use your ORCID iD throughout the research process, including when applying for grants and submitting works to publishers