Metric sources
Metric sources
Research metrics can be drawn from a wide range of sources, and the most appropriate choice will depend on the question you are trying to answer and the conventions of your discipline. The following provides an overview of the most commonly used sources.
Important Considerations:
Bibliographic databases process massive volumes of data, and researcher portfolios occasionally suffer from clerical errors or incorrect document mapping. This issue occurs most frequently when academics publish under alternate name variants, changed initials, or shared surnames. If you discover an error or a misplaced publication on a database or in your researcher profile, you can submit an online correction or data curation request directly to the database support desk. A way to prevent article misattributions is syncing your ORCID iD with your various database profiles. This single step guarantees outputs to be attributed correctly to your personal portfolio.
1. Commecial Citation Indexes
Commercial platform like Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions compile vast catalogs of peer-reviewed literature and can be access via institutional subscriptions. They offer extensive bibliometric data, allowing users to examine systemic citation data, historical author footprints, institutional affiliations, and cross-organizational collaboration networks. UiT subscribes to Web of Science which can be accessed through Oria.
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Read more about all the academic databases offered at UiT
2. Open Access Bibliographic Databases
Publicly accessible bibliographic databases provide free access to scholarly metadata and citation metrics without licensing restrictions. The most comprehensive of these is OpenAlex, an open-source platform indexing over 300 million scholarly works. Like subscription-based counterparts, it covers article and journal metadata, citation indicators, and author and institutional information, but under a public domain licence (CC0), making it freely available for research, text mining, and institutional use at no cost.
Other open databases include
- SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), an index for regional literature from Latin America, Spain and Portugal which ensure visibility for scholarly outputs often omitted by major databases
- CORE, a global aggregator that pools millions of full-text open-access papers harvested directly from decentralized institutional and subject repositories worldwide
- OpenAIRE, an initiative designed specifically to aggregate, track, and amplify European research outputs and open scholarship
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NVA - The Norwegian Research Information Repository
NVA differs from the citation databases described above. While researchers use it to register their publications and institutions rely on it to report outputs for funding purposes, its core function is literature registration, compliance, and institutional accountability, not citation tracking or bibliometric analysis. As a system designed specifically for Norwegian institutions, it is not a tool for international benchmarking and should not be used as a substitute for the databases described on this page.
Read more about NVA
Questions?
For questions about publication data, assistance with your own bibliometric analysis, or advice on managing researcher profiles and improving the visibility of your research, email us at forskning@ub.uit.no.