LibGuides: Research Impact & Bibliometrics: Welcome

Welcome

Evaluating Research Impact

This guide is intended to introduce scholars to the concepts of bibliometrics and the library tools that can be used to determine the impact of published research articles and research journals. Bibliometrics are particularly useful to faculty in the midst of tenure or reappointment proceedings, but can also be useful when applying for grants, and can illuminate trends in scholarship and assist authors when considering publication opportunities.

Selected Readings

In the selected readings section you will find a bibliography providing information on what bibliometrics and altmetrics are and how they are used as well as arguments against overreliance on bibliometrics. Hyperlinks to the article are provided.

Resources

The resource section provides links to tools that provide information for determining research impact. The resources are divided into author, article, and journal level metrics.

Resources

Author metrics

Publish or Perish
Publish or Perish is a software program from Harzing's that can provide author h-index and g-index metrics as well as other bibliographic information.

Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
Clicking "Create Citation Report" when performing an author search will show the author's h-index and other bibliographic information.

Google Scholar Citations
Citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations to your work on the web.
ORCID
ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized.
Altmetrics for Researchers
Altmetric begins collating the online mentions and shares of your research as soon as it’s published, meaning you can get almost immediate feedback on how it’s being received long before any citation data becomes available.

Article Metrics

Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
Provides access to three multidisciplinary databases covering selected journal literature and conference proceedings in the areas of the arts and humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Includes articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

CiteSeerX
CiteSeerX is a free online database focused primarily on computer and information science. The database provides citation indexing at the article level.

Journal Metrics

Cabells Directory of Publishing Opportunities This link opens in a new window
Provides information for scholars seeking to publish their research. Includes information about journal acceptance rates, the review process, number of reviewers, and journal impact factors. Includes information on journals in a wide range of disciplines.
Journal Citation Reports: JCR This link opens in a new window
Citation data drawn from over 7,500 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries. All areas of science, technology, and social sciences are covered. The JCR can show you the most frequently cited journals in a field, the highest impact journals in a field, and the largest journals in a field allow for journal evaluation and comparison.

General

National Information Standards Organization
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning.
Global Research Identifier Database
GRID is a free, downloadable global database of research organizations. One aspect of bibliometrics is distinguishing between entities, and GRID can assist with distinguishing research institutions.

Selected Readings

Altmetrics

Barnes, C. (2015). The Use of Altmetrics as a Tool for Measuring Research Impact. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 46(2), 121-134.

Bornmann, L. b. (2014). Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics. Journal Of Informetrics, 8(4), 895-903.

Carpenter, T. A., Lagace, N., & Bahnmaier, S. (2016). Developing Standards for Emerging Forms of Assessment: The NISO Altmetrics Initiative. Serials Librarian, 70(1-4), 85-88.

Collister, L. B., & Deliyannides, T. S. (2016). Altmetrics: Documenting the Story of Research. Against The Grain, 28(1), 16-18.

Erdt, M., Nagarajan, A., Sin, S., & Theng, Y. (2016). Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media. Scientometrics, 109(2), 1117-1166. doi:10.1007/s11192-016-2077-0

Featherstone, R. M. (2014). Scholarly Tweets: Measuring Research Impact via Altmetrics. Journal Of The Canadian Health Libraries Association (JCHLA), 32(2), 60-63. doi:10.5596/c14-015

Ortega, J. j. (2017). The presence of academic journals on Twitter and its relationship with dissemination (tweets) and research impact (citations). Aslib Journal Of Information Management, 69(6), 674-687.

Williams, A. a. (2017). Altmetrics: an overview and evaluation. Online Information Review, 41(3), 311-317

Pradhan, P. p., & Dora, M. (2015). Altmetrics: An Alternative View-Point to Assess Scholarly Research Impact. International Journal Of Information Dissemination & Technology, 5(2), 123-130.

Bibliometrics

Abrizah, A., Erfanmanesh, M., Rohani, V., Thelwall, M., Levitt, J., & Didegah, F. (2014). Sixty-four years of informetrics research: productivity, impact and collaboration. Scientometrics, 101(1), 569-585. doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1390-8

Barnes, C. S. (2016). The construct validity of the h-index. Journal Of Documentation, 72(5), 878-895.

Barnes, C. c. (2017). The h-index Debate: An Introduction for Librarians. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 43(6), 487-494.

Bonnell, A. G. (2016). Tide or Tsunami? The Impact of Metrics on Scholarly Research. Australian Universities' Review, 58(1), 54-61.

Braun, S. (2017). Supporting Research Impact Metrics in Academic Libraries: A Case Study. Portal: Libraries And The Academy, 17(1), 111-127.

Gauffriau, M. m. (2017). A categorization of arguments for counting methods for publication and citation indicators. Journal Of Informetrics, 11(3), 672-684.

Gruber, T. (2014). Academic sell-out: how an obsession with metrics and rankings is damaging academia. Journal Of Marketing For Higher Education, 24(2), 165-177. doi:10.1080/08841241.2014.970248

Mahmood, K. (2017). Correlation Between Perception-Based Journal Rankings and the Journal Impact Factor (JIF): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Serials Review, 43(2), 120-129.

Morningstar, J. (2015). Meaningful metrics: A 21st century librarian’s guide to bibliometrics, altmetrics, and research impact. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries.

Shah, S. R., & Mahmood, K. (2016). Validation of Journal Impact Metrics of Web of Science and Scopus. Pakistan Journal Of Information Management & Libraries, 18(2), 58-74.

Tahamtan, I., Safipour Afshar, A., & Ahamdzadeh, K. (2016). Factors affecting number of citations: a comprehensive review of the literature. Scientometrics, 107(3), 1195-1225. doi:10.1007/s11192-016-1889-2

Open Access

Gargouri, Y., Hajjem, C., Larivière, V., Gingras, Y., Carr, L., Brody, T., & Harnad, S. (2010). Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research. Plos ONE, 5(10), 1-12. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013636

Kanchan, T., & Krishan, K. (2015). Impact factor and open access - a misconstrued association. Current Science (00113891), 109(3), 397.

Salisbury, L., Chowdhury, A. R., & Smith, J. J. (2017). Faculty Publications from a Research University: The Scholarly Impact of Open Access versus Non-Open Access. Science & Technology Libraries, 36(2), 187-199. doi:10.1080/0194262X.2016.1273815

Teplitzky, S. s., & Phillips, M. m. (2016). Evaluating the Impact of Open Access at Berkeley: Results from the 2015 Survey of Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) Funding Recipients. College & Research Libraries, 77(5), 568-581.

Zhang, L. l., & Watson, E. e. (2017). Measuring the Impact of Gold and Green Open Access. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 43(4), 337-345.

Research Impact

Bornmann, L. (2017). Measuring Impact in Research Evaluations: A Thorough Discussion of Methods For, Effects of and Problems with Impact Measurements. Higher Education: The International Journal Of Higher Education Research, 73(5), 775-787.

Brown, J. D. (2014). Citation searching for tenure and promotion: an overview of issues and tools. Reference Services Review, 42(1), 70-89.

Dhiman, A. a. (2015). Bibliometrics to Altmetrics: Changing Trends in Assessing Research Impact. DESIDOC Journal Of Library & Information Technology, 35(4), 310-315.

Jarwal, S. D., Brion, A. M., & King, M. L. (2009). Measuring Research Quality Using the Journal Impact Factor, Citations and "Ranked Journals": Blunt Instruments or Inspired Metrics?. Journal Of Higher Education Policy And Management, 31(4), 289-300.

Milat, A. J., Bauman, A. E., & Redman, S. (2015). A narrative review of research impact assessment models and methods. Health Research Policy & Systems, 13(1), 1-7. doi:10.1186/s12961-015-0003-1

Moed, H. F., & Halevi, G. (2015). Multidimensional assessment of scholarly research impact. Journal Of The Association For Information Science & Technology, 66(10), 1988-2002. doi:10.1002/asi.23314

Ruscio, J., Seaman, F., D'Oriano, C., Stremlo, E., & Mahalchik, K. (2012). Measuring Scholarly Impact Using Modern Citation-Based Indices. Measurement, 10(3), 123-146. doi:10.1080/15366367.2012.711147

Smith, K. M., Crookes, E., & Crookes, P. A. (2013). Measuring Research "Impact" for Academic Promotion: Issues from the Literature. Journal Of Higher Education Policy And Management, 35(4), 410-420.

Zhang, L., Rousseau, R., & Sivertsen, G. (2017). Science deserves to be judged by its contents, not by its wrapping: Revisiting Seglen's work on journal impact and research evaluation. Plos ONE, 12(3), 1-18. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0174205

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