"Research Impact" describes the reach and influence of a scholar's work. Assessment of impact attempts to reconstruct the value you have given back to the academy and the public. More formally, "Research impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy. Impact embraces all the extremely diverse ways in which research-related knowledge and skills benefit individual, organisations and nations..."
[Research Councils UK]
Gordon Library provides expert consultation and robust tools for telling the story of a researcher/scholar's effectiveness in creating positive change through their work. Requests for preparation of bibliometric analysis/citation analysis reports to support promotion and tenure packets need to be submitted by April 1. (Turnaround time is between 1 - 2 months.) Email us at gr-faculty_support@wpi.edu with requests and questions.
Traditional methods of measuring research impact have for decades included providing bibliometrics on citations, journals, and authors. Gordon library is equipped with the research databases needed to find such metrics. In addition, the library provides guidance beyond the metrics for those who wish to report qualitative evidence of the impact of their work.
There are multiple reasons to measure your research impact:
Research metrics are contextual. A great place to start to explore what metrics might work best to tell the story of your work is the Metrics Toolkit. Also take a look at Snowball Metrics to see what standards are in place for institutional benchmarking.
Have questions? Email us at gr-faculty_support@wpi.edu with questions.