If you are applying for a research award or for promotion on the basis on scholarship, it can be important to provide information about the impact of your scholarship. There are several ways that you can approach this topic.

You can download Craig Finlay's workshop powerpoint for a great overview. You can also contact Craig directly for consultations at (574)520-4209 or scfinlay@iusb.edu.

Description of the publication outlet

Is the journal peer-reviewed? Is it published by a major disciplinary organization? What is the acceptance rate? Is it considered first-tier, second? What is their acceptance rate? Is it "pay to publish"?

If a book, who is the publisher? Are they widely respected? Are they selective?

If a conference presentation, were presentations peer-reviewed? Was it a major disciplinary organization?

Google Scholar Citations and h index

The first and easiest way to look at impact is Google Scholar. Set up a profile and it will pull in your publications. You can edit. If you make your profile "public" which means that other can see it. You can learn more about Google Scholar here.

This site will list all of your publications and tell you how many times it has been cited by other academic publications and even show you what those publications are. It also provides an h-index and i10-index for all times and for the past 15 years, which give one measure of the impact that your work has had. There is obviously a bias towards earlier works, which have had time to be cited. That ground-breaking study that you published last year will not have attracted many citations yet.

Altmetrics

Citations only tell the impact on academics doing similar research. But what impact has your work had on the real world? Are people reading your work? Is your work informing policy and practice? This type of impact is particularly important in the context of a regional campus. According to Craig Finlay:

Altmetrics are metrics and qualitative data that are complementary to traditional, citation-based metrics.

They can include (but are not limited to):

–Downloads

–Citations on Wikipedia and in public policy documents

–Discussions on research blogs,

–Mainstream media coverage,

–Bookmarks on reference managers like Mendeley

–Mentions on social networks such as Twitter.

Posting your work in Open Access sites can make it much more available to the public!

IU ScholarWorks is an IU digital repository service for IU research, hosted by IU libraries. Contact Craig to get your work included. You can get information about how many times and where your work is being read and used.

Impact Story is a free site that helps you track impact.

Altmetric has a plug-in for researchers that lets you see who has cited your work, from popular magazines to newspapers and more.

Researchgate.net lets you know how many people have read and downloaded your articles and their country.

And don't forget a simple Google search on your name--you can find websites that have linked to your work or include it on their website, items in many newspapers and magazines and more. This may not be fancy, but you might be surprised at who is talking about your research!