Research impact encompasses the broader societal, economic, environmental, and cultural contributions of research beyond academia. Objective metrics are commonly used to gauge the reach and influence of research outputs. Although these metrics cannot fully capture intangible value, they play a crucial role in assessing research contributions, evaluating researchers' performance, and influencing grant opportunities.
Bibliometrics serve as proxy measures for research performance, offering:
These metrics indicate research impact but don't necessarily reflect research quality. They provide quantitative insights into research performance while acknowledging limitations in measuring qualitative aspects of scholarly work.
Bibliometrics utilises a number of objective measures:
The underlying assumption of Bibliometrics is that the influence or impact of the research can be measured by the number of times a work is engaged with.
The h-index is a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact and quality of an author’s research output and performance. H-indexes compare the number of publications to the number of citations achieved. The h-index corrects for the disproportionate weight of highly cited publications or publications that have not yet been cited. Publication indexing databases automatically calculate a researchers h-index.
Average Citations: A key metric
This metric, when used alongside others, provides valuable insights into research impact. However, its application must be discipline-specific to ensure fair comparisons.
Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
Example:
FWCI provides a normalized measure of citation impact across different research fields.
Approximately 23,000 of the top academic journals are ranked by impact by SCImago. The journal list is divided into quartiles, the top 25% of which are identified as Q1.
The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator is a measure of the scientific influence of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where the citations come from. SCImago allows researchers to identify the best journals published within their discipline.
A publishing track record that includes a high percentage of Q1 journals significantly increases a researcher's impact.
Altmetrics is a platform that tracks the references (mentions) to specific research outputs across a multitude of non-academic forums such as newspapers, blogs, Twitter, Google posts and published policy. Altmetrics provides an indication of the social impact of research outputs. Social impact is becoming increasingly important for research funding applications and promotion.
Knowing where research outputs are being referenced and what is being said is crucial in today’s highly competitive research world.
Torrens researchers can view their Altmetrics profile, log in using your Torrens email address.
Scopus is a comprehensive abstract and citation database covering peer-reviewed literature across various disciplines. Scopus provides researchers with robust tools for bibliometric analysis, enabling them to track research impact, identify trends, and assess scholarly influence across various fields.
SciVal is a powerful tool that allows the analysis and benchmarking of research performance at the individual, research group, institution, subject and / or country level using Scopus as its data source.
SciVal provides the option to create the following reports:
Impact can be assessed through various mechanisms:
Altmetrics complement traditional metrics, offering a more comprehensive view of research impact beyond academia.