“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways …” ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861)

Citation counts to one’s publications are important as they signify the impact of one’s research. The counts are commonly used as an indicator of staff performance and may affect one’s promotion or tenure. They are also used as a tool for department benchmarking and university ranking. Thus, it was no surprise that the citation count workshops conducted this month by the NUS Libraries’ Cited Reference Team were once again oversubscribed.

The workshops were targeted at teaching, research and administrative staff. We clarified the often confusing terminologies used in citation counts and illustrated the steps for using Scopus and Web of Science to obtain the citation counts for an author. We also demonstrated how to compile citation counts for both indexed journals and non-indexed publications such as book chapters and conferences. We shared many tips on searching the databases and the interesting exchange of questions and answers with the participants made the workshop a great learning experience for all.

The Cited Reference Team received much favourable feedback which have encouraged us to continue developing and improving subsequent citation count workshops. We would once again like to thank Dr Michael Beer from the Department of Civil Engineering for allowing us to use his name and publications during the workshop demonstrations.

 

Happy counting,
Scibrarian