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DataBank: Article Level Metrics & Citation Analysis

Introduction

Choose JOURNALS under PUBLICATIONS. The following is taken from the website of PLoS:

Article Metrics

The “Metrics” tab on each article provides information on online article usage, citations to the article, and other indicators of impact. The regularly updated data fall into the following categories:

  • citations
  • article usage
  • media and blog coverage about the article
  • social tools for reference management as well as research recommendation and evaluation
  • PLoS reader evaluation

These are described in full on the journal ALM page.

Article Usage

Online “Article Usage” data, as recorded at the PLoS sites, are available for all PLoS journals for all articles published from June 17, 2005 to present. The understanding of these data is not straightforward, and so we have provided detailed (technical) information and summary data tables. Newly published articles do not accumulate usage data instantaneously but require approximately 48 hours before data are shown.

PubMed Central (PMC) usage data for each article was introduced in January of 2010, and PLoS started displaying this data from Jan 2012. PMC counts the number of page views and PDF downloads of the article on their site. PMC sends their usage data to us once a month. As a result, articles may experience a lag with the display of PMC data (up to a month’s time). The total article usage data is an aggregate of PLoS and PMC usage, combined.

These sources have their own limitations and in addition, results may overlap between sources. Read more detailed information about article usage data.

Article Citations

Citations to the article are gathered from several sources including PubMed Central, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and CrossRef.

These sources have their own limitations and in addition, results may overlap between sources. Read more detailed information about article citation metrics.

Other Indicators of Impact

Other indicators of the impact of the article include:

  • PLoS reader evaluation: Comments/Notes/Star ratings on the PLoS site.
  • Blog coverage: ResearchBlogging and Nature Blogs
  • Social tools for reference management, recommendation, and evaluation: Facebook, Mendeley, CiteULike, and Connotea

More information about each of these indicators and their limitations can be found on our Article-Level Metrics Information page.

Please note that, excluding PLoS article usage and PLoS reader evaluation, the data reported is automatically generated via information supplied by each service. PLoS is not responsible (nor able to correct) any errors which originate with the third party concerned.