My Research Impact: What, why and how?

1. latrobe.edu.au
CRICOS Provider 00115M
CRICOS Provider 00115M
My Research Impact:
What, why and how?
latrobe.edu.au/library

2. What is it?
• Citation analysis is a widely accepted measure of the impact or
influence of your research
• It is based on the concept that the number of times you get cited
is meaningful – the more citations, the greater the relevance
• Citation analysis tools measure the number of times your
published research has been cited by other researchers (the
‘citation count’)
• It is important to be aware of the scope of all citation tools
because no one tool measures all publications
• Traditional publishing and your research impact can be
enhanced by altmetrics and social media
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3. Citation Count
• Provides the number of times your publications have
been cited
• The amount of citations to a paper may not be a
reflection of the paper’s quality
• Self-citations can distort the citation count results
• Metrics are not as well established in some disciplines
such as arts, humanities, social sciences & business
• The calculation also depends on the tool used
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4. h - index
• Used to qualify the impact and quantity of your research
output
• h-index is the number of papers that have been cited at
least h times
– ie. an h-index of 20 tells us that the author has
published 20 papers that have been cited at least 20
times
• Your h-index will depend on the length of time you have
been publishing and on the tool used
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5. Why use it?
• Measure your personal research effectiveness
• Grant applications
• Promotion & recruitment
• Benchmarking
• Performance evaluation
• Identify potential collaborators
• Identify emerging areas of research
Image: futureatlas.com/wikimedia commons
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6. How to get started?
• Tools & metrics vary between disciplines
• Be aware of the limitations of each tool and the data sources
from which the metrics are retrieved.
• Accurate metrics require the tool to index the author’s
publication titles as well as the cited publication titles
• No single tool is comprehensive
• Note: negative citations are counted as valid
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7. Main points to remember
• Don’t rely on one single tool.
• Investigate each tool to see what suits your research
profile
• Some disciplines rely less on publishing in academic
journals
• Use a combination of metrics with other qualitative
information
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8. Other ways to increase your influence: get your
profile out there!
• Consider using multiple tools and social media: get your profile out there!
• Use Research Online: LTU repository (add publications and data)
• Research Gate, LinkedIn, SSRN, REPEC (Ideas)
• Social media
• Check out the competition: are they using these networking tools or social
media?
• Do some research or ask your librarian: some tools are discipline specific
(SSRN: Social Sciences Researchers Network)
• Discuss with your supervisor or colleagues and friends about which tools and
social media they are using
• Write a social media plan;
• Contribute to the repository and tweet the permalink or add the permalink on
ResearchGate
• Register for ORCID and ResearcherID
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9. Help
• View the Citation Analysis LibGuide for further
information and instructions on how to use the various
tools
• Contact your Senior Research Advisor
Attribution: MyRI: My Research Impact (An Open Access toolkit to support bibliometrics training & awareness).
Image: impact / impakt/n. bySickMouthy
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