Outside of specific institutional and organizational settings discussions about ‘impact’ often descend into confusion, as the term holds several meanings for researchers. Responding to a provocation from Ziyad Marar “On Measuring Social Science Impact”…
Category: measuring impact
Now is the time to update our understanding of scientific impact in light of open scholarship
Sascha Friesike, Benedikt Fecher and Gert. G. Wagner outline three systemic shifts in scholarly communication that render traditional bibliometric measures of impact outdated and call for a renewed debate on how we understand and measure research impact. New digital research infrastructures and the advent of online distribution channels are changing the realities of scientific knowledge creation and dissemination. Yet, the […]
Making visible the impact of researchers working in languages other than English: developing the PLOTE index
As outlined in the Leiden Manifesto, if impact is understood in terms of citations to international publications, a bias is created against research which is regionally focused and engaged with local society problems. This is particularly critical for researchers working in contexts with languages other than English. Peter Dahler-Larsen has developed the PLOTE index, a new indicator which hopes to […]
Developing international guidelines for an effective process of research impact assessment
Governments, funding agencies, and research organisations all over the world are now committed to measuring the impact of research beyond academic publications. Accordingly, a multidisciplinary practice called research impact assessment is rapidly developing. However, this practice remains in its formative stages and so no systematised recommendations or accepted standards to guide researchers and practitioners are currently available. Pavel Ovseiko, Paula […]
Beyond Impact Factors: an Academy of Management report on measuring scholarly impact
What constitutes scholarly impact? And which stakeholders have importance for research? Usha Haley shares findings of a recent Academy of Management report that sought answers to these questions by surveying its 20,000 members and conducting a selection of in-depth interviews with prominent figures. A majority of respondents indicated journal rankings did not reflect scholarly impact, yet publications in top-tier journals […]
The creative elements of engagement mean that using metrics to measure impact is not always possible
Engagement activities are often noted to create clear, descriptive pathways to impact. However, the lack of standardised metrics and measures means the monitoring and evaluation of engagement activities remains difficult. Sarah Evans and Clare Deane encourage researchers to think creatively about how to measure engagement; by considering outcomes as well as outputs, ensuring indicators are truly relevant to the audience, […]
If academics are serious about research impact they need to learn from monitoring, evaluation and learning teams
The impact of academic research, particularly on policy and the private sector, is an increasingly important component of research assessment exercises and funding distribution. However, Duncan Green argues that the way many researchers think about their impact continues to be pretty rudimentary. A lack of understanding of who key decision-makers are, a less-than-agile response to real-world events, and difficulties in […]