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DataBank: Article Level Metrics & Citation Analysis

Recommended For

some Humanities and some Social Sciences         

Introduction

Several Ebsco databases offer citation searching. You can use these tools to track works, or as evaluators of the library's journal collection by tracking the citations of faculty and comparing that journal list against the library's catalog, or comparing the number of times the journals, indexed in these databases, are cited in articles.

"Cited References" and "Times Cited in this Database" are available in these:

  • Academic Search Premier
  • Academic Search Elite
  • Business Source Premier
  • Communication and Mass Media Complete

Limitations

The main weaknesses of the Ebsco databases in citation analysis are: (1) you need to know exactly what the date coverage is to compare different journals (Is there an embargo period? How far are back files available?), (2) whether or not coverage is comprehensive per issue, and (3) which important journals are not included.