This help page explains some of the nuances around the data that is available on your impact dashboard. For more details on how to use the dashboard, see this related help page.
How do we calculate work counts for institutions?
Work counts for an institution come from OpenAlex, an open catalogue of scholarly works.
We pull a count of every work that OpenAlex associates with your institution. OpenAlex links works to institutions using ROR (Research Organization Registry) identifiers, so the count reflects every output where an author’s affiliation has been matched to your institution’s ROR ID.
This means your work count may differ from figures in your own repository or CRIS.
How do we calculate secondary citations?
A secondary citation is when a policy document cites another policy document that itself cites your research. A piece of scholarly work hasn’t been referenced directly, but it may have shaped a source the second document relied on.
- A research paper is published by your institution.
- Policy document A cites that paper. This is a direct citation.
- Policy document B cites policy document A. For your paper, this is a secondary citation.
Secondary citations show how research travels through the policy landscape, often reaching organisations and countries that never cited it directly. They are counted separately from direct citations on your dashboard.
Why do some graphs show citation data from 2005 onwards?
The impact timeline and citation window distribution graphs only include policy documents published from 2005 onwards.
Overton’s coverage of policy documents published before 2009 can be sparse, depending on the source. As a result, citation totals in these graphs may be lower than the totals shown elsewhere on your dashboard, which include all years.
How do we calculate mentions?
A mention is when a person is referenced by name in a policy document, even if none of their scholarly publications is formally cited. Mentions capture influence that citations miss, such as a researcher giving evidence, sitting on an advisory panel or being consulted by the authors.
A mention is counted when Overton identifies a person’s name alongside their institutional affiliation in the text of a policy document. Two limits apply:
- PDFs only. We can only track names mentioned in policy documents published as PDFs.
- ROR-registered institutions only. We can only track a mention when the affiliation is a research institution with a ROR ID.
Because a name and an affiliation must both appear, a person named without their institution won’t be counted as a mention for that institution, and therefore will not appear on your impact dashboard.