This document provides information and suggestions for researchers to measure the impact of their research outside of academia. It discusses tracking community, industry and policy impact through influencing practices or informing government policies. It also covers researching dissemination through publications in non-academic contexts, citations in media or on Wikipedia. The document lists resources like databases and search techniques to identify non-academic impact and offers assistance with creating impact narratives and improving online profiles.

1. Collecting Metrics to Measure
Impact Outside Academia
Research Librarian Support Day 2015
http://www.uws.edu.au/
http://www.uws.edu.au/hie/hie
www.tilligerryhabitat.org.au
www.weekendnotes.com
www.earthtimes.org
www.whitehorseps.vic.edu.au
www.isramedical.com.au
Susan Robbins
Research Services Coordinator
University of Western Sydney Library
s.robbins@uws.edu.au

2. Research impact is the demonstrable contribution that
research makes to the economy, society, culture,
national security, public policy or services, health, the
environment, or quality of life, beyond academia.
http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP16/DP16_instructions_to_applicants_DP16.pdf
Track record section of ARC Discovery application is worth 40%
of proposal
http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/DP16/DP_Discovery_Program_2015-16_funding_rules.pdf
http://www.uws.edu.au/

3. Community/Industry/Policy Impact
Has your research/data been used to inform government policy, i.e. classroom
numbers, new school locations, medical intern hours, infrastructure, food or bio
safety ...? www.pixgood.com
Has your research/data been used to inform current practice, i.e. advancement in
medical practice, classroom practice, economic practice, healthy living, mobile
phone etiquette, mental health services, natural disaster communication …?
www.aragec.com
http://www.uws.edu.au/

4. Research Dissemination/Public Education
• Are your research papers open access? If so who could benefit from this? Consider
scientists/researchers in non-academic contexts, third world countries and low social economic
areas.
• Could your research be used to solve wider international problems both within and external to your
specific discipline?
• Are your publications on school or university reading lists?
• Do you have Altmetrics (alternative metrics) which demonstrate evidence of wide research
dissemination in and outside academia? For example:
• If you have a Twitter account, how many followers do you have and from what areas are they ie
researchers, government, general public?
• If you have a blog/professional Facebook site how many followers do you have? Do you have any
examples of blog comments that illustrate impact?
• Has your work been widely shared by Mendeley users?
• Is your work referenced in Wikipedia, or do you maintain a public information site on Wikipedia
relating to your research?
• How many views and downloads of your papers have occurred on academic networking sites such
as Academia.edu or ResearchGate?
• Has your work been discussed in the media (by yourself or others), including ‘The Conversation’?
Do you have a regular media timeslot/column?
http://www.uws.edu.au/www.dphotographer.co.uk

5. Subscribed Resources
Informit databases, Factiva and ProQuest ANZ
Newsstand contain Australian grey literature and
media. Conduct a search for your
name/publication and scroll through results list
for non academic publications
http://www.uws.edu.au/

6. Google Scholar
www.elevategfblogs.com
Conduct a Scholar search for your publication. Click into ‘Cited by’. Scroll through citing sources to identify non
academic publications such a government/industry policies, working papers etc. You could check the ‘Search
within citing articles’ box and narrow the search to a particular domain such as site:.gov.au or a search term
such as ‘report’.
http://www.uws.edu.au/

7. Google
http://www.uws.edu.au/
www.jeffbullas.com

8. Australian Policy Online
http://www.uws.edu.au/
Search your name/institution to see if you are
mentioned in any Australian
policies/documents contained within this
database.
www.jeffbullas.com

9. Open Access
• Is your research/data open access? If so, where (Figshare,
Dryad, Research Repository, Academia.edu) and what
potential uses could it have?
• Is your data (open or mediated access) described in Research
Data Australia to enhance discoverability
If your open data has a DOI, put that into Google/Google Scholar
to identify any citations. Data Citation Index (Thomson) is a
subscribed resource for this purpose.
http://www.uws.edu.au/

10. Patents/IP licenses
If you have a patent/IP, is it being cited/used by
government/industry/researchers?
Locating/Measuring this Impact:
Research Performance of University Patenting in
Australia: A Pilot Assessment has some excellent
suggestions
http://www.uws.edu.au/
www.noroip.com

11. Locating Altmetrics
Free aggregator
Altmetric Bookmarklet
Subscribed aggregators:
Altmetric in Scopus
ImpactStory
Plum Analytics
Symplectic Elements
Consider downloads & views from individual journal, social
media (Twitter) & social networking sites (Academia.edu,
ResearchGate), discipline specific sharing sites such as SSRN,
ArXiv and your institutional repository.
http://www.uws.edu.au/

12. Follow up opportunities
• Assistance to create a compelling narrative
using the raw metrics
• Open Access (publications & data) advice
• Social media/online academic profile advice
• Identity management advice
“While I was compiling your metrics I noticed…”
http://www.uws.edu.au/www.quickanddirtytips.com

13. Further reading
Tinkler, J (2012) Moved to measure the ‘impact’ of research on society, University World News,
Issue 246
Holbrook, J.B., Barr, K.R., Brown, K.W. (2013) Research Impact: We need negative metrics too,
Nature, 497 (7450), p. 439
London School of Economics Public Policy Group (2011) Maximizing the Impacts of Your Research:
A handbook for social scientists, Consultation draft 3
Pinowar, H. (2013) Altmetrics: Value all research outputs, Nature, 493, pp.159
Donovan, C. (2008). The Australian Research Quality Framework: A live experiment in capturing
the social, economic, environmental, and cultural returns of publicly funded research. In L
Bornmann (2012) Measuring the societal impact of research, EMBO reports, 13 (8), pp 673-676.
Kenyon, T (2014) Defining and Measuring Research Impact in the Humanities, Social Sciences and
Creative Arts in the Digital Age. Knowledge Organization. 41(3), 249-257
Mapping the Humanities report conclusion