Bibliometrics, or research impact, is the quantitative method of citation and content analysis for scholarly journals, books and researchers. The quantitative impact of a given publication is appraised by measuring the amount of times a certain work is cited by other resources. By implication, you can measure the influence or 'impact' that a given work has on the rest of academic literature. Bibliometrics should always be supplemented by qualitative peer review and a strong argument on impact in a personal statement.
Bibliometrics is based upon statistical sampling. It is based upon certain assumptions. These assumptions must be accounted for in any appraisal.
In this short video, Dr. Kevin Lalor, School of Social Sciences and Law, Dublin Institute of Technology, highlights some of the limitations of use of journal impact data in the social sciences and humanities and all the types of publication that are missed.
To tell your impact story, you need to find the citation count of your research papers through citation databases and alternative metrics tools. They are key instruments that allow a user to understand the impact of an individual published paper or of a researcher's body of work. Citation databases and altmetrics tools can be used for the following:
|It is important to note that not all databases have a complete record of information regarding a certain published item. It would be wise to use multiple databases to fully utilize this feature.|
A Guide to Evaluating Research Performance with Citation Data
"If you can measure that of which you speak, and can express it by a number, you know something of your subject; but if you cannot measure it, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory."
~ William Thomson, Lord Kelvin