iCite: Influence delivers metrics of scientific influence such as the publications trends over time, citations per year and Relative Citation Ratio (RCR).
RCR represents the field- and time-normalized citation rate, and is benchmarked to 1.0 for a typical (median) NIH-funded paper in the corresponding year of publication. Fields are defined for each article by using its co-citation network. This benchmarking process ensures that a paper with an RCR of 1.0 has received the same number of cites/year as the median NIH-funded paper in its field, while a paper with an RCR of 2.0 has received twice as many cites/year as the median NIH-funded paper in its field.
Relative Citation Ratio is not available for papers published in the last fiscal year, since, in general, not enough time has passed for citation statistics to meaningfully accrue in that time frame. An exception is made for papers with 5 or more citations since publication, as these are deemed to be accruing citations quickly enough for reliable calculations. RCRs for papers published in the previous two years are flagged as "provisional" to reflect that citation metrics for newer articles are not necessarily as stable as they are for older articles.
For more information on RCR, see Relative Citation Ratio and Hutchins et al., PLoS Biol. 2016;14(9):e1002541.*
*This publication used R01-funded publications as a benchmark. The current RCR uses all NIH-funded publications as a benchmark.