New Forms of Research Impact Metrics
A new library subject guide, Research Impacts Using Citation Metrics, examines and presents emerging forms of metrics that help scholars to better share and know the impact of their research.
A new area of scholarly bibliometrics has emerged to reflect new forms of social media and technologies that can rank and define impact in new ways. A major emphasis has been to examine not just the author and his or her publication metrics but to better utilize research networking tools to track and understand scholarly impact.
In addition, electronic publishing has altered the landscape of scholarship and research in most disciplines. The recent emphases on preserving and sharing research data and responding to the federal mandates for publishing government sponsored research each contribute to new possibilities in measuring impact for the scholar, scientist and institution.
The new guide highlights and addresses the background and methodology of the issue. It examines and instructs on how to trace and understand the impact of a specific author, a scholarly article, a given journal or source, and the institutional reputation. In addition, it identifies the emerging metrics and “altmetrics” now used that rely more extensively on social exchanges, rich social media and new web-based results, and suggests what the further impacts and trends are in this quickly maturing field. Finally, it promotes open source and open access publishing tools and resources.
Please use the guide and share with your Research Librarian any questions or comments you may have. For further information, please contact Julia Gelfand, Applied Sciences & Engineering Librarian (x44971 or jgelfand@uci.edu).