Is there any other way to track one's citation count besides Google Scholar?

12 December 2015 10 2K Report

How long does Google Scholar take to update citations on the user profile? Is it possible that certain citations have been missed by Scholar?

Thanks in advance.

Zeeshan Bhatti Popular answer

Google Scholar uses their own search engine to search and include research papers in their databases. They are quite accurate but not completely or 100 accurate as there are numerous journals and conference not indexed by google scholar. So one way is to use ResearchGate , but RG also includes only those papers that are included in their own Database, thus also is limited.

you can also use other websites such as ResearcherID by Thomason Reuters, Scopus, Citeseer cites to track your citations. Also there is a tool by Harzing "Publish and Perish" to track your citations.

However, most organisation and universities recognise Google Scholar as authentic metric to measure your citations and impact along with Scopus.com and JCR.

Dean Whitehead

Hi Ruchi - Google Scholar is one of the more generous citation databases. They include additional citation - other than journal citation - such as books, theses and reports. I'm not sure how up-to-date they are - but quite accurate I think. The main database is Thomson Reuters ISI - but they are the most conservative. In-between is Scopus. RG has a reasonably accurate citation checker.

Zeeshan Bhatti

you can also use other websites such as ResearcherID by Thomason Reuters, Scopus, Citeseer cites to track your citations. Also there is a tool by Harzing "Publish and Perish" to track your citations.

However, most organisation and universities recognise Google Scholar as authentic metric to measure your citations and impact along with Scopus.com and JCR.

Adeleke Ibrahim Taiwo

To count your citations from other than Google Scholar, see the following:

How to Count Your Citations

For better or worse, academics use citation counts as one of several ways to assess the value of a researcher's output. Here's how to find these numbers.

Go to the Web of Science at http://webofknowledge.com/. This is a commercial site but most universities have a subscription.

If you want to save your search, click on "Sign In" in the upper right, then click "Register" from the menu and make an account.

Click on the drop-down menu to the right of the orange "Search" arrow, and select "Web of Science Core Collection".

Click on the drop-down menu to the right of the "Basic search" and select "Advanced Search". If you don't see this option, go back to the last step, as it is only available to this database.

You will need to develop a search that gets only your publications. The best way is to start with the most inclusive form of your name:

I enter "AU=Harrington, J" and optimistically click Search

This yields 1,968 publications, mostly not by me. I guess someone else is named Harrington, J.

So, I restrict to my institution. Click "Edit" at the end of the new search and enter:

AU=Harrington, J and OG=Univ Cent Florida

Only 33 pubs. Looks like I need to add all the other places I've worked.

AU=Harrington, J and (OG=Univ Cent Florida or OG=Cornell or OG=NASA or OG=MIT)

80 pubs. That's too many, so let's check them out. I click on the number 80 under Results. I see a paper that isn't mine. It includes "Harrington, JP" and has a different co-author with NASA affiliation. I don't have a middle initial, so get rid of all "Harrington, J"s who do (this looks ugly, but it's really quick to do with a word processor and cut-and-paste):

AU=Harrington J not (AU=Harrington JA or AU=Harrington JB or AU=Harrington JC or AU=Harrington JD or AU=Harrington JE or AU=Harrington JF or AU=Harrington JG or AU=Harrington JH or AU=Harrington JI or AU=Harrington JJ or AU=Harrington JK or AU=Harrington JL or AU=Harrington JM or AU=Harrington JN or AU=Harrington JO or AU=Harrington JP or AU=Harrington JQ or AU=Harrington JR or AU=Harrington JS or AU=Harrington JT or AU=Harrington JU or AU=Harrington JV or AU=Harrington JW or AU=Harrington JX or AU=Harrington JY or AU=Harrington JZ) and (OG=(Univ Cent Florida or Cornell Univ or MIT or NASA))

Down to 59 pubs. But I know I have 54. I see some random articles with long author lists. Probably they have a Harrington, J and another co-author with one of my affiliations. I choose the most obscure name from each paper, hoping I won't collaborate with them in the future, and eliminate them from my search by adding:

not (AU=Acosta D or AU=Kuwanoe or AU=Avramov)

Finally, I see an erratum. Yup, a publisher messed up a formula in my paper and I made them print an erratum. WOS thinks that's a pub, but my colleagues don't! The letters "pg" appear in the erratum title. Eliminate it with:

not TI=pg

The final search is:

54 pubs. I double-check my CV and it has all my papers, so I record these search criteria on my own machine and also on their system. I will use this search a lot, throughout my career!

To get a citation report, I click "Create Citation Report", which is a tiny link on the results page on the right side near the top of the papers list. This gives me charts for items published per year and citations per year, number of times cited per year and per paper, total cites, h-index, and so forth.