Tuesday 16th September heather.parsonage@ntu.ac.uk sharon.potter@ntu.ac.uk victoria.boskett@ntu.ac.uk

1. Raising your research profile
Evidence of exposure: measuring
your research IMPACT
Research Support Team

2. By the end of the session you will be able to:
• Understand the role of research impact metrics
• Identify and apply relevant metrics to your research
• Create alerts to monitor the continued impact of your research
• Understand the potential of social media (and alternative metrics) to
increase research impact
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3. Research impact metrics (Bibliometrics)
what are they?
• A quantifiable way of measuring research output (beyond the
traditional peer-review process)
• They can be used to measure the impact of many aspects of
research (research groups, universities, journals and individuals)
• Found in a variety of places: Scopus, Web of Science, Google
Scholar etc.
• Traditionally impact measured by the ‘quality’ of where you publish
– now there is marked move towards article levels metrics (ALMs)
• Based on citations of your papers
• h-index most commonly used for measuring individuals.
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4. Where to find citation information about your
papers
• Google Scholar
• Web Of Science
• Scopus
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5. Get notified when you get cited: setting up
alerts
• Google Scholar
– Setting up Google Scholar profile will enable you to track when your work is
cited http://scholar.google.co.uk/intl/en/scholar/citations.html
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6. Scopus alerts
• Register for a personal account for Scopus / go to your author page
/ select either Follow this Author or Get citation alerts
• You can also create citation alerts for your individual papers
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7. Web of Science alerts
• Register for a personal account / perform an author search / go to
search history and save search – you then get the option to set up
alert
• Citation alerts for individual papers
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8. What is the h-index?
• Developed by Professor Jorge E. Hirsch
• h short for highly cited or Hirsch
• Measures the impact and quantity of an individual’s research
performance i.e. their body of work (unaffected by other factors).
• Enables easier evaluation of authors within specific subject area
• Can helps publishers find new reviewers
• Can help predict future success (Hirsch 2007) - could help with
funding applications /employment.
• Recognised way of showing impact.
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h-index

9. How it works
• Based on a formula
A scientist has index h if h of his numbers of papers (NP) have at
least h citations each and his other papers (NP-h) have fewer then h
citations each.
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10. Where to find your h-index
Web of Science (via a Citation report)
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11. Scopus (via ‘Author Search’)
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12. Google Scholar
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13. Which h-index to use?
• Variants are due to different source data.
– WOS includes references of an author regardless of whether cited items are
indexed by WOS or not.
– Scopus only provides citation data for items indexed by it.
– Google Scholar indexes free abstract data, from open access sources such as
institutional repositories, personal websites. Supports disciplines are supported
better than others (Computing, Mathematics etc.) due to limited content in
traditional databases.
• The one that gives you the HIGHEST score!
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14. Things to note
• h values will vary between subject disciplines (so this must be
considered when comparing authors).
• No accounting for age – a more seasoned researcher could
potentially have higher h-index as he has had a longer to publish
and be cited.
• Check for currency – a researcher may have a high h-index but may
not have published for some time and conversely an active (new)
researcher may have a low h-index (but of course may has the
potential to be cited in the future.)
• h-index is only applicable to traditional research outputs (articles,
conference proceedings)
• It can’t capture influence on public policy, improved global health
etc.
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15. Alternative metrics (or Altmetrics): what are
they?
• They “expand our view of what impact looks like, but also of what’s
making the impact.” (Altmetrics manifesto, 2011 http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/)
• New(ish) way of measuring scholarly impact beyond traditional
citation counting in the online environment.
• They can reflect the broader social impact of research (a different
view of the influence of your work)
• They capture social media references to scholarly output and can
reflect public/social engagement
• They are more timely than traditional metrics – can quickly see
impact quickly (citation data takes time to accrue).
• Also include PDF downloads and information about abstract/article
views.
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16. Examples of Altmetric tools
• Impact Story creates a metrics report for your articles, data sets,
slides, software, or webpages.
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• Altmetric Labels articles with an altmetrics score, which is a volume,

17. Altmetric
Labels articles with a quantitative measure of the quality and quantity
of attention that a scholarly article has received.
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18. PLoS article level metrics
Available for all articles published by PLOS.
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19. ResearchGate
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20. Altmetrics and you
• They can offer a more nuanced insight into impact – enabling you to
see if your article is being read and discussed.
• Can demonstrate the influence of your research on a more diverse
audience (not just academics) practitioners, educators, general
public etc.
• Public engagement can help engaging with funding, securing
employment/promotion and being accountable.
• They can complement traditional citation metrics.
• For early career researchers (or those changing direction) you can
showcase impact earlier.
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21. References & further reading
• Ael 2, [online]. Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H-index-en.svg [Accessed 19th February 2014].
• Bar-Ilan, J., 2008. Which h-index?—A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 74 (2), 257-271.
Available at: http://150.214.190.154/hindex/pdf/Bar-Ilan2008.pdf [Accessed 5th August 2014].
• Google Scholar coverage: http://scholar.google.co.uk/intl/en/scholar/metrics.html#coverage
• Hirsch, J.E., 2007. Does the H index have predictive power? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America, 104 (49), 19193-19198. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2148266/
[Accessed 06/08/2014].
• Hirsch, J.E., 2005. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102 (46), 16569-
16572. An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1283832/?iframe=true&width=100%25&height=100%25 [Accessed 19th
February 2014].
• Neylon, C. and Wu, S., 2009. Article-level metrics and the evolution of scientific impact. PLoS Biology, 7 (11), e1000242.
Available at: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000242 [Accessed
06/08/2014].
• Piwowar, H., 2013. Introduction altmetrics: What, why and where? Bulletin of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology, 39 (4), 8-9. Available at: http://asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-13/AprMay13_Piwowar.pdf [Accessed 5th
August 2014].
• Piwowar, H. and Priem, J., 2013. The power of altmetrics on a CV. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, 39 (4), 10-13. Available at: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-13/AprMay13_Piwowar_Priem.pdf [Accessed
5th August 2014].
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22. Further help
• Scopus tutorials
• Web of Science help pages
• Setting up your Google Scholar profile
• h-index variants
• List of alternative metrics tools
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