Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level.
Despite their recognized limitations, bibliometric assessments of scientific productivity have been widely adopted. We describe here an improved method to quantify the influence of a research article by making novel use of its co-citation network to field-normalize the number of citations it has rec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2016-09-01
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| Series: | PLoS Biology |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002541&type=printable |
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| author | B Ian Hutchins Xin Yuan James M Anderson George M Santangelo |
| author_facet | B Ian Hutchins Xin Yuan James M Anderson George M Santangelo |
| author_sort | B Ian Hutchins |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite their recognized limitations, bibliometric assessments of scientific productivity have been widely adopted. We describe here an improved method to quantify the influence of a research article by making novel use of its co-citation network to field-normalize the number of citations it has received. Article citation rates are divided by an expected citation rate that is derived from performance of articles in the same field and benchmarked to a peer comparison group. The resulting Relative Citation Ratio is article level and field independent and provides an alternative to the invalid practice of using journal impact factors to identify influential papers. To illustrate one application of our method, we analyzed 88,835 articles published between 2003 and 2010 and found that the National Institutes of Health awardees who authored those papers occupy relatively stable positions of influence across all disciplines. We demonstrate that the values generated by this method strongly correlate with the opinions of subject matter experts in biomedical research and suggest that the same approach should be generally applicable to articles published in all areas of science. A beta version of iCite, our web tool for calculating Relative Citation Ratios of articles listed in PubMed, is available at https://icite.od.nih.gov. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-08231d290596483299dcd32056d1143d |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1544-9173 1545-7885 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2016-09-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-08231d290596483299dcd32056d1143d2025-08-20T03:26:14ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Biology1544-91731545-78852016-09-01149e100254110.1371/journal.pbio.1002541Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level.B Ian HutchinsXin YuanJames M AndersonGeorge M SantangeloDespite their recognized limitations, bibliometric assessments of scientific productivity have been widely adopted. We describe here an improved method to quantify the influence of a research article by making novel use of its co-citation network to field-normalize the number of citations it has received. Article citation rates are divided by an expected citation rate that is derived from performance of articles in the same field and benchmarked to a peer comparison group. The resulting Relative Citation Ratio is article level and field independent and provides an alternative to the invalid practice of using journal impact factors to identify influential papers. To illustrate one application of our method, we analyzed 88,835 articles published between 2003 and 2010 and found that the National Institutes of Health awardees who authored those papers occupy relatively stable positions of influence across all disciplines. We demonstrate that the values generated by this method strongly correlate with the opinions of subject matter experts in biomedical research and suggest that the same approach should be generally applicable to articles published in all areas of science. A beta version of iCite, our web tool for calculating Relative Citation Ratios of articles listed in PubMed, is available at https://icite.od.nih.gov.https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002541&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | B Ian Hutchins Xin Yuan James M Anderson George M Santangelo Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. PLoS Biology |
| title | Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. |
| title_full | Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. |
| title_fullStr | Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. |
| title_short | Relative Citation Ratio (RCR): A New Metric That Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level. |
| title_sort | relative citation ratio rcr a new metric that uses citation rates to measure influence at the article level |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002541&type=printable |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bianhutchins relativecitationratiorcranewmetricthatusescitationratestomeasureinfluenceatthearticlelevel AT xinyuan relativecitationratiorcranewmetricthatusescitationratestomeasureinfluenceatthearticlelevel AT jamesmanderson relativecitationratiorcranewmetricthatusescitationratestomeasureinfluenceatthearticlelevel AT georgemsantangelo relativecitationratiorcranewmetricthatusescitationratestomeasureinfluenceatthearticlelevel |