Google Scholar Metrics:
A New Tool for Faculty
to Track Their
Publication Citations
Fu Zhuo
Research & Liaison Librarian
University of Missouri – Kansas City
November 7, 2014 Maryville, Missouri
Google Scholar Metrics
Overview and How It Works

A tool to find most noticeable and significant scholarly publications in
a certain subject field.

Top 100 publications in 9 languages are listed in an order by their fiveyear h-index and h-median metrics with highest numbers coming out
first.

Anyone can browse publications in a specific area of research. Select
one of the areas in the left column. (e.g. Social Sciences >
Subcategories > Educational Administration > “Education and Urban
Society”.) However, browsing feature is only for English language so
far.

Anyone can search for specific publications in all languages by words
in their titles.

Current list of publications were based on its index in June 2014.
What Is h-Index?



“The h-index of a publication is the largest number h such
that at least h articles in that publication were cited at
least h times each.
For example, a publication with five articles cited by,
respectively, 17, 9, 6, 3, and 2, has the h-index of 3.”
Accessed from source Google Scholar Metric “Available metrics” November 4, 2014
What Is h-Score?
“The h-core of a publication is a set of top cited h articles from
the publication. These are the articles that the h-index is based
on.
 For example, the publication above has the h-core with three
articles, those cited by 17, 9, and 6.”


Accessed from source Google Scholar Metric “Available metrics” November 4, 2014
What Is h-Median?
“The h-median of a publication is the median of the citation
counts in its h-core.
 For example, the h-median of the publication above is 9. The hmedian is a measure of the distribution of citations to the
articles in the h-core.”


Accessed from source Google Scholar Metric “Available metrics” November 4, 2014
What Is Included?


Articles published between 2009 and 2013 and the metrics are
based on citations from all articles indexed in Google Scholar in
June 2014 including citations from articles that are not
themselves covered by Scholar Metrics:

1. Journal articles from websites that follow their inclusion
guidelines;

selected conference articles in Computer Science and
Electrical Engineering;

preprints from arXiv, SSRN, NBER and RePEC - for these sites,
they compute metrics for individual collections, e.g., "arXiv
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)" or "CEPR Discussion
Papers".
Accessed from source Google Scholar Metric “Available metrics” November 4, 2014
What Is Not Included?

Currently excluded:

court opinions, patents, books, and dissertations;

publications with fewer than 100 articles published between
2009 and 2013;

publications that received no citations to articles published
between 2009 and 2013.

Accessed from source Google Scholar Metric “Available metrics” November 4, 2014
Why Using Google Scholar Metrics?

Find most popular scholarly publications based on citations and
h5-index to publish new research results.

Following latest research trends in a certain field from
citations.

Track citations of his/her articles in other scholarly publications
by clicking on its h-index number to view the articles and the
citations underlying the metrics.

Identify which scholarly publication has higher h5-index number
and thus publishing there may result in more visibility and
impact.

Get familiar with a comprehensive list in a certain subject area
and provide guidance to both novice and productive authors
Top 10 Publications in Educational
Psychology & Counseling
Title
h5-Index
h5-median
Impact Factor
Acceptance Rate
Journal of Educational
Psychology
52
74
2.909
17%
Journal of Counseling
Psychology
41
49
2.955
18%
Learning and Individual
Differences
38
47
2.158
40%
Contemporary Educational
Psychology
32
48
3.159
15%
Educational Psychology
Review
31
50
2.846
11-20%
Psychology in the schools
31
38
0.566
20%
Educational Psychologist
30
57
4.844
21-30%
School Psychology Review
30
42
2.82
7-15%
British Journal of
Educational Psychology
29
45
2.25
11-20%
Journal of School
Psychology
28
37
3.470
11-20%
Data accessed from Google Scholar Metrics, Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities and each individual journal website 11-5-2014.
Journal of Educational Psychology
Accessed Google Scholar Metrics “Journal of Educational Psychology November 4, 32014.
Useful Notes and Tips

H-index is just one of the ways to evaluate significance of a
scholarly publication. Their ranking is based on h index not
impact factors. Publications are citation-based, not impact or
significance based.

Social Sciences and Humanities are not covered in the top
English 100 scholarly publications. Perhaps Google Scholar can
list their respective top 100 publications. Currently, only 20
publications are listed each under humanities and social
sciences.

Journal acceptance rates are not shown. That information is
also useful for any new authors such as undergraduate or
graduate students.
Useful Notes and Tips Continued

Only 9-language publications listed. Chinese language scholarly
publications do not include those from Taiwan or Singapore. No
explanation is given to tell readers whether a language
publications include a certain country or countries. But English
publications cover both American and British journals.

A large number of articles from smaller publications are not
listed in Google Scholar Metrics and they have values too.

Searching full title works better. Abbreviated title may not
result in anything or something different from what you need
unless the title itself is an abbreviation.

Only some open access journals are included, such as SSRN
(Social Science Research Network) and PloS One (Public Library
of Science).
Summary

Google Scholar Metrics is an useful tool. Potential authors can
use it to find out which scholarly publication has more visibility
and influence in a certain field based on h-index. Other authors
can use it to track citations of his/her scholarly publications.

However, for those who wish to publish, it would be also helpful
to check acceptance rate from Cabell's Directory of Publishing
Opportunities, impact factor numbers from Journal Citation
Reports and Web of Science for citation numbers.

In the end, librarians should alert their patrons the limitations
when recommending Google Scholar Metrics so that other tools
such as Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities, Journal
Citation Report, or Scopus can be used to find publication
opportunities, influence of a publication, and citation
information of a certain article.
Thank You

Questions?
Bibliography

Delgado-López-Cózar, E., & Cabezas-Clavijo, Á. (2012). Google scholar metrics: An unreliable tool
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doi:10.3145/epi.2012.jul.15

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
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
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
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
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doi:10.3145/epi.2013.sep.12
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
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
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