ABSTRACT
Metrics-based research methods refer to a range of techniques for collecting metric data (e.g., publication numbers, citation counts, web links, tweet mentions) about publications, citations, social interaction, and more. Of the metrics-based research methods, bibliometrics and its two related techniques – informetrics and scientometrics – are all for gathering publication and citation data. For this reason, bibliometrics receives primary coverage in this chapter. Webometrics and altmetrics are methods for collecting web data and social media data, respectively. This chapter describes and compares the major data sources for gathering bibliometric data (i.e., Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar), followed by main bibliometric techniques such as citation analysis, bibliometric laws, impact factor, the h-index and its variations. Features and related issues of the bibliometric method are presented and discussed. The dos and don'ts in bibliometric research are also recapitulated. The last section of this chapter is devoted mainly to altmetrics, an emerging metric-based method, as webometrics is on its way out. Topics of altmetrics examined include data sources, using altmetrics in research as well as dos and don'ts in altmetric research. One case study each is done on bibliometrics and altmetrics.
