New Article: “Going Beyond Bibliometric and Altmetric Counts to Understand Impact”

The following article by Kristi Holmes (Northwestern University) appears in the June 2014 issue of Elsevier’s Library Connect newsletter.

Title

Going Beyond Bibliometric and Altmetric Counts to Understand Impact

Author

Kristi Holmes
Director, Galter Health Sciences Library
Associate Professor, Preventative Medicine-Health and Biomedical Informatics
Northwestern University

Source

Library Connect (Elsevier)
June 2014
From the Article:

Research impact and productivity are important considerations for promotion and tenure activities, but their influence and use within the academic community extend far beyond these specific applications. Researchers are increasingly called on to demonstrate the impact of their efforts in a variety of circumstances and settings:

• Discover how research findings are being used
• Identify similar research projects
• Identify possible collaborators
• Confirm that research findings were properly attributed/credited
• Discover community benefit as a result of research findings
• Compile progress reports
• Justify funding requests
• Quantify and document research impact

Across research institutions, librarians are increasingly called upon to help researchers meet this need to better understand the greater impacts of research funding toward the advancement of science and (in the case of biomedical research) improved human health. Librarians are responding through traditional approaches, as well as through good old fashioned detective work.

Direct to Full Text Article (Approx. 1500 Words)
See Also: The June 2014 issue Elsevier’s Research Trends (Issue 37) magazine contains 10 articles about altmetrics and includes “A Brief History of Altmetrics” by Professor Mike Thelwall, PhD. (University of Wolverhampton).

Filed under: Elsevier, Funding, Libraries, News, Productivity, Reports