Research Impact

Traditional metrics that measure research influence within academia can be complemented by other types of metrics, sometimes referred to as “altmetrics,” which aim to measure the more immediate impact of research as it crosses into more multidisciplinary or general publishing outlets outside the academy. Examples include social media activity, coverage in media outlets, inclusion of the research in policy documents, discussions of it on blogs and even bookmarks within reference managers like Mendeley.

The benefit of combining these different types of metrics is that it allows for a fuller picture, or story, to be told about scholarly output. One such example is the Becker Model, designed to track diffusion of biomedical research, or the Payback Framework.

In addition to these models, there are specific tools which can help you begin to gather this type of additional data. Below is a list of several altmetrics tools that you can explore.