Measuring research impact allows you to:
Understand the change your work is making in the world,
Understand who is reading and using your scholarship, and what they are using it for,
Determine how to make your research results more accessible,
Tell the story of your research and scholarship in grant applications, tenure and promotion dossiers, and more,
Know the research trends in your discipline,
Decide where you would like to publish your work,
Connect with potential collaborators, supervisees, and more.
It is best to take a “basket of metrics” approach; this means that in determining your research impact, tell a story of your impact by using multiple different metrics, from multiple different metrics providers/tools.
Research impact can be determined using both qualitative and quantitative factors. Qualitative factors include things like peer-review, which validates the integrity of research (for other examples, see “Basket of Measures” section of UWaterloo guide). Quantitative measures of research impact come in the form of research metrics.
Research metrics are usually determined at three different levels: journal, author, and article (or publication). Traditionally, there are two kinds of research metrics:
Bibliometrics: uses of the work in other academic sources
Altmetrics: citations in the ‘real world’
Examples include mentions on social media, websites, in blogs, patents, policy documents, and other grey literature
NOTE: The concept of “research impact” applies differently across academic disciplines. For some academic disciplines, potentially those in the Creative Arts, traditional understandings of “research impact” may not have applicability at all. It is important to understand the context of your discipline – if you are new to this work, talking to an experienced faculty member and/or mentor may be a helpful experience.