Impact Metrics and Scholarly Attribution

A Google Scholar Profile allows scholars to:

• Keep track of citation metrics using popular indices and easy-to-read graphs.
• See who is citing one's own publications and follow research themes.
• Decide whether or not to share one's profile publicly.
• Authorize Google to update article lists automatically or choose to update manually.
• Have one's profile included in Google Scholar search results.
• Monitor and make corrections to the list of one's own publications.
• Promote oneself professionally at no cost.

Here is the Google Scholar Profile for Richard Feynman:

References can be sorted by "Cited By" (or the times it's been cited) or Year. 

You can also see additional citation metrics on the right hand side of the screen, including total citation counts, and an author's h-index and i10 index.

You can also click on "View All" to see Citations Per Year. 

To see a citation graph for an article, as shown here, click on the title of an article.

Scholars are encouraged to establish a profile, otherwise the value of a Google Scholar search is limited. Also, authors can then control the content of their listings in Google Scholar to make sure all their work is represented.

Sign up for a Google account if you don't already have one.

On the Google Scholar home page, click on My Citations.

You'll be asked for your email address. 

Add articles you've authored, either singly or in groups. You can add co-authors to your Google Scholar profile. References can be selected from the list Google provides, added from a Google Scholar search or added manually.

Review and update profile.

Add photo and other finishing touches.

Choose whether to keep profile private or make it public.

Your citation metrics will be automatically updated by Google Scholar.

To have your articles list automatically updated, select Profile Updates from Action menu, choose automatic updates setting, and click Update Settings.

To get notified of new citations to one's own or another author's publications are added to Google Scholar, click on the "Follow" button link in the right sidebar of the author profile, and submit the form pictured below. You can also follow when new articles are published or when new articles are published that relate this author's research. 

h-index is the largest number h such that h publications have at least h citations. The second column has the "recent" version of this metric which is the largest number h such that h publications have at least h new citations in the last 5 years.

i10-index is the number of publications with at least 10 citations. The second column has the "recent" version of this metric which is the number of publications that have received at least 10 new citations in the last 5 years.

Caveat: Remember that the Google Scholar database does not have set inclusion parameters (e.g. journals, date ranges). Scholars should regularly check their own profile for duplicates, omissions and errors.

Citation counts and indices should not be compared between disciplines. For best results use multiple tools.