Research Metrics

Research metrics provide a way for you to track the performance of your research, provide evidence to support your claims in grant and promotions applications, and can also be used as part of a strategic publishing plan to identify suitable publishing outlets.

There are two main categories of metrics:

1. Bibliometrics or citation metrics
These are measurement tools used across the scholarly publishing industry to measure the performance of a publication, a publication source, or a researcher. Bibliometric methods apply quantitative analysis and statistics to identify patterns of publication and citation activity within a particular field or body of literature.

2. Alternative metrics or Altmetrics
These are measurement tools used to demonstrate how your research outputs are being engaged with online. Altmetrics are metrics and qualitative data that can explain both the volume and nature of attention that research receives online. They are complementary to traditional citation-based metrics.

There are three main ways in which metrics are measured.

Make sure the metric you are using is related to the entity you want to assess. 

The term "research impact" refers to your research's effect beyond the academic community, i.e., in broader society. The terms "metrics" and "impact" are frequently used in conjunction and can even be interchanged at times. While there can be some crossover - for example, in a grant application, you might use both metrics and impact data to demonstrate the significance and contribution of your work - it's essential to recognize the difference between the two concepts.

Video: Research in 3 Minutes: Metrics by Office of Scholarly Communication, Cambridge

• Research Impact: Telling Your Story - The Bernard Becker Medical Library guide offers practical examples of how to include contextual information beyond just numbers.
• Who, What, Where, When, Why: Using the 5 Ws to Communicate your Research - LSE blog post by Andy Tattersall

• Telling Impact Stories - In this video from Cushing/Hay Medical Library at Yale University, the Becker Model is introduced along with its list of impact indicators that can be used to narrate impact stories.

Snowball metrics are:

• Defined and agreed by research-intensive universities themselves..
• Commonly understood metrics that help uncover research strengths by benchmarking apples with apples, and thus provide valuable input into strategic decision making.
• Tested methodologies that are not tied to any particular provider of data or tools.
• Recipes that are owned by universities, and are available free of charge for use by any organization.
• Aspire to become global standards and cover the entire spectrum of research activities.

As you progress through this guide, you will notice the Snowball metric icon, which signifies that the metric in question is a snowball metric. Read more about Snowball Metrics.

You can gather and analyse research metrics and altmetrics from several sources. Results will vary between sources due to the differences in coverage of publication types and discipline areas, so it is recommended to use various sources.

This guide was compiled using material from several other sources, all licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License:

• Guide created by James Cook University Library,
• Guide Research Metrics, created by Western Sydney University Library staff
• Guide Research Impact Indicators & Metrics by Christine Turner
• Guide Bibliometrics & Research Impact by Ashling Hayes
• Guide Altmetrics from the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
• Guide Database Comparisons, by Iowa State University Library

Other guides and resources used:

• Research Metrics Guidebook from Elsevier
• Research metrics quick reference (by Elsevier)
• Snowball Metrics (operated by Elsevier)

Unless otherwise stated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License.