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University of Iowa

University Libraries

Measuring Impact

Guide content supports the teaching and research goals of multiple departments on campus. Content represents a non-exhaustive selection of essential resources and tools for engaging a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.

Measuring Impact for Research Assessment

Research assessment and evaluation is a complex endeavor with changing best practices, including measuring impact. The purpose of this guide is to provide information about quantitative methods of measuring impact: bibliometrics and altmetrics; and to connect you with the services and support you need to use these methods accurately and responsibly for research assessment.

The UI Libraries Scholarly Impact department's publication analysis service can help you collect and analyze publication data for individuals, research groups, departments, and colleges. The resulting reports and visualizations can be used for:

  • Original research and literature reviews
  • Promotion and tenure documentation
  • Grant proposals and reports
  • Department reviews and reports, etc.

We also offer a workshop: Measuring Impact: H-Index, Impact Factor, and other Metrics for individuals and groups. Please contact the Scholarly Impact department for assistance. We look forward to working with you.

Bibliometrics and Altmetrics

Bibliometrics are a set of quantitative methods of analyzing the impact of research outputs. There are many methods used to calculate bibliometrics, but they all use citation counts. Every time a research output (i.e. journal article, book, book chapter, conference proceeding, dataset, etc.) is used as a reference in another output, that counts as a citation. Because citation practices can be biased and manipulated, it is important to use bibliometrics responsibly and in combination with other measures. 

Bibliometrics are calculated at three levels:

Altmetrics attempt to measure the impact of the research output outside the scholarly literature, including mentions in the news, blogs, social media, public policy documents, and citation managers. Only works with DOIs (digital object identifiers) can be tracked with altmetrics.

SciVal

SciVal is a research assessment tool that analyzes publication data by institutions, researchers, countries, subject areas, topics, and sources and provides bibliometric data at the article, author, and journal levels.

While powerful, SciVal is also complex and has a steep learning curve. Please contact Scholarly Impact for assistance with SciVal, we're happy to help.