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"A few years ago, Google Scholar started displaying inbound citation counts for papers... . Scientists have started to see these inbound citation counts as a wa
by minopret 14y ago
"A few years ago, Google Scholar started displaying inbound citation counts for papers... . Scientists have started to see these inbound citation counts as a way to demonstrate the impact of their work..."
Let's note that article citation counts have been commonly available at research libraries for about fifty years in the Science Citation Index. (Disclaimer/disclosure: I do not speak for the business that produces the Science Citation Index. That business is my current employer.)
- RichardPrice 14y agoYes, that's true. But authors only started including their inbound citation counts on their job applications in the last few years. I think the main reason for this is that Google Scholar's citation metrics were free and openly accessible, and the Science Citation Index was, and still is, behind expensive paywalls. Scientists were happier to include citation metrics in their resumes when they knew that the committee could easily check them, and wouldn't have to pay to get access to them.
- gammarator 14y agoSupporting your point, astrophysicists have been using citation counts in this way for quite a few years thanks to the citation data provided by the NASA Astrophysical Data System. Citation counts are biased, but at present they are the best we have. Their main attraction is that they are transparent and hence trustworthy, and a proxy for what we really care about: aggregate expert judgement of importance. Any replacement will have improve one or both dimensions--I don't think timeliness alone is enough.