Responsible Bibliometrics: Home

Bibliometrics is a term used to describe statistics that measure usage of research publications based on citation counts and patterns. Data can be collected at the level of an article, a journal title, or at the level of an author.

Bibliometrics can be used to evaluate the influence of an individual research output, such as a journal article, or a collection of research outputs, such as all works by a particular author, research group or institution.

They can be used to provide insight into academic publications for individual researchers, for research groups, or at an institutional level.

High citations do not directly correlate to high quality, and a portfolio of metrics, including both quantitative and qualitiative should always be used in research evaluation.

There are many factors that affect citations to publications. When using bibliometric data, you should:

• Be aware of the strengths and limitations of particular bibliometric measures
• Understand how citation patterns differ between different disciplines
• Recognise how a researcher's profile including career stage, gender, language and race can impact citations to their publications.

DMU is committed to evaluating research in a fair and equitable way.  The University is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment and has a Policy Statement on the Responsible use of Bibliometrics

Training and guidance on the Responsible use of bibliometrics is currently being developed and will be available soon. In the meantime, direct any questions to libraryresearchers@dmu.ac.uk