Presentation for the Bibliometric and Research Impact Community (BRIC) of Canada on case studies of research impact in specialized settings. Focus on Michigan Publishing by co-presenter Rebecca Welzenbach

1. Scholarly Metrics in
Specialized Settings:
A View from the Trenches
Elaine M. Lasda, University at Albany, SUNY
Rebecca Welzenbach, University of Michigan
Presentation for Bibliometric and Research Impact Community
15-16 May 2019
Laval University, Quebec City, QC, CAN

2. Merci de nous
accueillir ici
aujourd'hui!

3. Research Impact in the Academy

4. Metric "Tyranny" - Muller

5. Caution: Proceed With Care!
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

6. Specialized Contexts
● Impact of their research reaches beyond the academy
● Differing missions require differing metrics
● Purposes/benefits of metrics expand beyond employee
promotion/tenure/institutional rankings etc.
● Demonstrating value in broader arenas, to broader constituencies

7. Book Genesis
● Meeting of the Minds with Emerald
● Special(ized) Libraries and Librarians
● Personal Network
● Variety is the Spice of Life

8. The Five Case
Studies
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

9. Institute for
Transportation
Studies
Kendra K. Levine

10. ITS & Research Impact
The Challenge Tracking research through transportation project
lifecycle and beyond (Justify funding from
Legislature)
Stakeholders Cali. State Legislature, High Level UC admins,
Transportation community(public and private)
Outputs/Content Assessed Technical reports and other grey literature, PRJAs,
project reports, etc.
Impact Deliverables Created a method for tracking impact using Google
Scholar and liking research output to project codes.
Librarian Roles Gathering, synthesizing data, communicating with
field and administatiors, facilitating cooperation,
technical expertise, subject matter knowledge

11. Environmental
Protection
Agency
Taylor Abernethy Johnson
&
Anthony Holderied

12. EPA & Research Impact
The Challenge Demonstrate meaningful value of scholarly output,
researcher accountability, meet administrative and
researcher requests
Stakeholders Researchers, funders, award committees, agency
administration
Outputs/Content Assessed Mainly PRJAs and other traditional scholarly output
using WoS/InCites, ImpactStory, PlumX, GS/PoP,
Altmetric, news, etc.
Impact Deliverables RIR/AIR <- impact reports with high quality visual
appeal, context and data synthesis
Librarian Roles Graphic design and visualization, data gathering,
synthesizing, contexutalizing. Brought in on other
data projects. Educating stakeholders.

13. University/
National Center
for Atmospheric
Research
Keith Maull
&
Matthew Mayernik

14. NCAR/UCAR & Research Impact
The Challenge Demonstrate impact in 3 arenas: annual report of
activity, EarthCube “ecosystem”, and scientist use
of supercomputer @ NCAR
Stakeholders Funders (government/university members),
researchers, UCAR/NCAR Directorate, Library
Outputs/Content Assessed Largely PRJAs, but other scholarly output will be
included
Impact Deliverables Annual Report. Use/Impact beyond Journal-
Author-Article levels. Impact of NCAR
equipement/services. Used WoS/InCites, Altmetric
Librarian Roles Software engineers! Gather data, technical
expertise (developing an API), testing workfkow
and delegating when appropriate

15. LA Museum of
Natural History
Richard P. Hulser

16. LA-MNH & Research Impact
The Challenge Demonstrate interest and visibility of rsch & activity
beyond citing references and media hits
Stakeholders Museum admin, media & Marketing, donors,
education program, resarchers
Outputs/Content Assessed PRJAs, and nonscholarly publications
Impact Deliverables Proof of concept of wide range of uses of altmetrics
for a museum/humanities environment
Librarian Roles Leading, project management/coordination, liaison
with vendor, promotor/champion, educatio

17. Live, and In Person:
Rebecca
Welzenbach

18. Compliance & Defiance: Michigan Publishing's
Early Encounters with Research Impact Metrics
Rebecca Welzenbach
Research Impact Librarian
University of Michigan Library
BRIC 2019, Laval University, Quebec City

20. What is Michigan Publishing doing?
1. Publishing and supporting excellent and innovative scholarship in the
humanities and social sciences, including:
a. Peer-reviewed scholarly monographs
b. Independent, open access journals
c. Institutional repository
2. Driving change in our industry to help university presses and library publishers
adapt and thrive into the future, including:
a. New business models
b. Community-owned infrastructure
c. Modeling leadership and collaboration

21. University of Michigan Press
● Founded in 1930
● Part of the U-M Library since 2009
● 80-100 monographs per year with
disciplinary strength in Classical
studies, performance studies, political
science, African and Asian Studies,
and more
● OA titles funded by Knowledge
Unlatched, TOME, and more
● Acquisitions, Production, Marketing
& Outreach, Business and
Administration, technology
● Relies (mostly) on a sales model

22. Michigan Publishing Services
● Established as Library Unit ~2000
under the name Scholarly Publishing
Office
● ~30 OA journals/serials and ~35
books
● Production and hosting support for
external clients Lever Press &
Humanities EBook
● Relies (mostly) on chargebacks

23. Deep Blue
● Launched in 2006
● >124,000 objects in document
repository (DSpace)
● 237 data sets in data repository
(Samvera/Fedora)
● ⅓ of items in Deep Blue are not
published/available anywhere else
● Sustained as a core service by U-M
Library

24. Michigan Publishing and research impact metrics
Historically: little involvement. But now, more is expected, requested, mandated.
How best to engage effectively? Two options:
● Compliance: We can work to ensure that our publications are consistently
recognized by and included in the systems and datasets upon which existing
metrics are calculated.
● Defiance: We can articulate new (alternative) metrics that are meaningful for
us and our stakeholders

25. University of Michigan Press (Monographs)
Compliance
● Books have long been totally absent from the research impact metrics space.
Where they’ve been indexed, the record is inconsistent: BKCI-SSH has indexed
194 UM Press titles while Scopus has indexed 916
● Newer players Google Scholar and Dimensions Plus are changing what’s
possible to know and show--but now we’re turning up a lot of gaps.
● Citation counts for a single title are interesting to authors--but only if accurate.
Otherwise, distressing!

27. University of Michigan Press (Monographs)
Defiance
● University presses tend to look to different metrics:
○ Financial (across press, not necessarily at book level)
○ Academic/disciplinary prestige/reputation (awards, reviews, repeat authors, attracting
prominent authors)
○ Use and persistence (course adoptions, new printings/editions)
● Mapping the Free eBook Supply Chain study of OA ebook usage revealed that--
as presses have long known--usage is “spiky” and unpredictable.
● Altmetric Explorer pilot sheds light on long-term engagement with books,
syllabus citations
● Lots of data from many sources, but difficult to analyze and share meaningfully

29. Michigan Publishing Services (Journals)
Compliance
● For many of our journals (esp. In the humanities), JIF and comparable metrics
are not meaningful--but that can change suddenly based on author demand
● As we expand into new disciplines--especially health sciences--the requirement
for representation in indexes like WoS, Scopus, and Medline are a huge
challenge, learning curve
● Student journals pose their own unique challenges
● Often our role is to educate, provide context, manage expectations, facilitate
progress

30. Michigan Publishing Services (Journals)
Defiance
● We’re interested in success, stability of our program and services
○ How many journals?
○ Are they publishing consistently?
○ What proportion of our service supports campus publications vs. off-campus?
○ Are we succeeding in getting them indexed?
● Altmetric pilot applied to journals in 2015. In 2017 shareable reports made this
useful
● Google Analytics + Google Data Studio for sharing usage data with partners

32. Deep Blue (Institutional Repository)
Compliance
● Many items in the repository were first published in scholarly journals with
citation counts, JIF, and other bibliometrics.
● Integration of IR with Research Information System will ensure that these
publications are preserved, accessible, and contextualized

33. Source: Byrne, Kate and Stephen Cawley. Connections, Collaborations, & Impact: Data-Driven Approaches to
Understanding institutional research expertise. Digital Science case study. October 2018

34. Deep Blue (Institutional Repository)
Defiance
● Visibility of informal and non-traditional forms of scholarship
● Download statistics
● Altmetric engagement data**
● Variety of types and forms of scholarship means that even the metrics we have
don’t work the same way for everyone, everything

36. Leading for Change in our Industry
New business models

37. Leading for Change in our Industry
Community-Owned Infrastructure

38. Leading for Change in our Industry
Leadership and Collaboration

39. Which is worse:
To be represented
inadequately, or not at all?

40. Which is better:
To show up where we know
others are counting? Or to
count what matters to us?

41. Conclusion: Future Directions
Compliance
● DOIs and ORCIDs
● Consistent capture &
communication of data about
usage and impact
Defiance
● Interrogate what counts, and
what we count
● HuMetricsHSS
● Responsible Metrics policies

42. Synthesis
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

43. How the Cases Differ
● Range of library mission & purpose
● Funding sources
● Parent organization activities
● Relationships to stakeholders
● Evaluated subjects/objects
● Impact data output formats
● Technical resources & staff skill sets
● Maturity & level of services provided

44. Shared Challenges
● Labor intensive
● Lack of standardized identifiers for all output types
● “Out of the box” tools insufficient
● Metrics do not stand alone/speak for themselves
● Need for stakeholder education
● Measuring impact outside disciplinary boundaries/publications
● User education: “Metric Literacy”

45. Organizational Challenges/Opportunities
● “Canaries in the coal mine”
● Collaboration across the enterprise
● Embedded librarian/informationists
● Recognition of leadership
● Educational mission -> Information Literacy -> Metric Literacy

46. InfoPro/Librarian/(??) Challenges/Opportunities
● Project management
● Tech skills
● Negotiation
● Delegation
● Relationship building
● Valued team members

47. Benefits to the Greater Organization
● Confidence in the numbers
● Comparative advantage -> wise use of human resources
● Improved communication and breaking down silos
● Owning the story

48. Questions?
Release Date: August 19, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/NewMetrics