Research Guides: Research Impact & Scholarly Credentials: Get Started

Why is Research Impact Important?

It is important that researchers know their impact as it can help:

support applications for tenure or promotion
justify requests for grants and other funding
quantify and determine how their research is being used
identify other researchers or institutions that are using their work
identify other researchers, and potential collaborators, in their field

Understand Impact Measures & Metrics

articles vector Citation Analysis, also called citation tracking or cited reference searching, involves identifying articles, books, or other materials that have cited a specific work. Citation analysis allows researchers to see who is citing their work, and is also often used to measure researcher and article impact.

academic building atop publication vector Journal Impact is most commonly assessed using impact factor. A measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year, the impact factor helps researchers evaluate a journal's relative importance, especially when compared to others in the same field. Keep in mind that not all journals are ranked.

academic building atop publication vector Book Impact can include reviews of a book, both scholarly and popular, publisher influence, sales figures (when available), and numbers of libraries that own the title. In some cases, the number of owning libraries is not enough evaluative information but, instead, which specific libraries own the title as well.

scholar profile vector Researcher Impact is a measure of author productivity and impact over time.

Social/Cultural Impact is relevant for scholars who may not necessarily have their creative works cited in scholarly literature. Metrics can include information on live performances, readings, reviews, recordings, screenings, exhibitions, grants awarded, and prizes won -- all indicators of a scholar's impact and influence.

chat bubbles vector Altmetrics are measures of research impact that supplement citations. They measure the wider, societal impacts of scholarly works by tracking how they are discussed, shared, saved, read, and reused by scholars and the public.