This guide brings together resources that provide measures of scholarly impact using both traditional metrics, such as journal impact factor and h-index, and emerging web-based alternatives, referred to as altmetrics. It also attempts to contextualize research impact analysis by bringing in alternative assessment suggestions, pointing out metric limitations, and presenting counterpoints.
Research centers, departments, and working groups often compile annual lists of new publications. Rather than surveying faculty or trying to piece together limited information, use Affiliation fields and saved author lists in databases to ease this process.
Researchers are often asked to maintain a list of professional publications. Simplify this process by setting up an ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) iD and linking it to an author profile in major databases.
Research can be complex and interdisciplinary, and at a large institution like Penn, it's possible to find multiple scholars interested in the same subject, but situated in very different contexts and departments. Try the Scopus Researcher Discovery tool to find potential Penn collaborators by topic.
Rather than compiling journal metrics one at a time, use Journal Citation Reports to compare up to 50 journals at a time across various metrics, including Journal Impact Factor (JIF). This page also details the downside of relying on journal metrics and offers alternatives.
Consider all the ways a single document may have impact: through scholarship, policy, newsworthy discussion, and more. This page discusses challenges with assessing a document's impact and walks through finding metrics and altmetrics.
H-index is a metric related to author productivity and citation statistics. This page offers two tools to gather a researcher's h-index, and walks through how to manually reconcile differences if necessary.
