Welcome to Day 7 of the Clemson Libraries Research Impact Challenge!
Yesterday we focused on what kinds of work you are doing. Today we’ll look at concrete ways the impact of that work might be measured, focusing on this question: How do you get from the work you do, to an appropriate metric for measuring and communicating its impact?
Let's get started!
1. The Metrics Toolkit, launched in 2018, is a great tool to help you navigate the research metrics landscape. Take a few minutes to explore this site. You might want to explore all of the included metrics, check out use cases for this tool, or read up on the recently announced Editorial Board, who take responsibility for maintaining and updating this tool.
2. Now that you are oriented, let's test out the toolkit. Go to Explore Metrics and select the one you want to use from among the icons listed.
3. Your results will likely include a mixture of bibliometric indicators, such as citations-based measures of impact, and less traditional suggestions, such as blog mentions or Mendeley readers. Do any of the suggestions surprise you?
4. Click on at least two of the suggested metrics and read about them.
The Metrics Toolkit is a user-friendly introduction to identifying appropriate researich impact metrics, but it’s not the only tool like this available. Check out Snowball Metrics for another approach to defining and identifying standardized, replicable, open, research impact metrics.
Milat et al. “A narrative review of research impact assessment models and methods.” Health Research Policy and Systems (2015) 13:18. DOI 10.1186/s12961-015-0003-1. This review provides an overview of frameworks and methods of measuring research impact in applied in a subset of health sciences research published from 1990-2013.
You've completed Day 7 of the Research Impact Challenge! While completing this challenge, you may have noticed that the Metrics Toolkit groups all citation-based measures of impact together. Tomorrow, we’ll dig into this category, looking at specific citation-based impact metrics, how to calculate them, and how to understand them in context.
