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Research Impact Metrics

Provides an overview of Research Impact Metrics

Field Weighted Citation Impact and Category Normalized Citation Impact

Sample Statement:

"My paper '(publication title)' has FWCI 2.51, which means its citation impact is 2.51 times than similar articles worldwide."

What is Field-Weighted and Category Normalized Citation Impact

Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI, found in SciVal) and Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI, found in Incites) are useful metrics for demonstrating a publication’s impact. They account for differences in citation practices across various academic fields.

FWCI and CNCI measure how the number of citations received by a publication compares to the average number of citations received by similar publications in the same field, year, and document type. To calculate FWCI and CNCI, divide the actual number of citations received by the publication by the expected number of citations for similar publications. For example, if a paper in microbiology receives 20 citations and the average for similar papers in microbiology is 10, the FWCI would be 2.0.

  • A FWCI or CNCI of 1.00 indicates that the publication have been cited at world average for similar publications. 
  • A FWCI or CNCI of greater than 1.00 indicates that the publication have been cited more than would be expected based on the world average for similar publications. For example, a score of 1.44 means that the outputs have been cited 44% more times than expected.
  • A FWCI or CNCI of less than 1.00 indicates that the publication have been cited less that would be expected based on the world average for similar publications. For example, a score of 0.85 means 15% less cited than the world average.

Finding Citation Counts and Percentile in Scopus

  1. Go to Scopus.
  2. In the search mode Documents, type in the title of the publication.
  3. Open the publication page and FWCI can be found here.

 

Finding Citation Counts and Percentile in Web of Science

  1. Go to Web of Science.
  2.  Search the title of the publication.
  3. The citation counts can be found on the right-side panel.
  4. Select 
  5. On the right hand side the Category Normalized Citation Impact will be found on the new page.

 

  • Multi-Disciplinary Challenges: FWCI and CNCI may not accurately reflect the impact of research spanning multiple disciplines.
  • Outlier Influence: the metric can be skewed by publications with unusually high citations.
  • Small Sets: are less reliable for small sets of publications.