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Measuring the impact of your research

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Why is being able to measure your research impact important?

  • It raises the profile of you as a researcher, your research, your department or research group, and ultimately the wider organisation.
  • Increasingly research funders require researchers to be able to demonstrate impact in a quantifiable way.
  • It provides evidence of your effectiveness as a researcher and can be used to help you develop your research career.

Citation metrics

Citation metrics provide a traditional way of measuring scholarly research impact and NTU subscribes to several databases which provide citation metrics: Web of Science, Scopus and Journal Citation Reports. Citation metrics are also freely available from Google Scholar. Citation metrics should be always used responsibly as an accompaniment to peer review and expert knowledge; users should be aware of limitations and incongruities.

Alongside these metrics is an increasing body of alternative, or complementary, metrics which demonstrate online engagement with your research.

The Library Research Team offers training and guidance on the use of metrics, where to find them and what they can tell you. The team will also work with you to undertake more specialist citation analysis using SciVal to produce reports relevant to your College, School, Research Group or Research Theme. Please contact us for more information.

NTU’s Responsible Metrics Statement outlines the University’s approach to metrics-based research assessment. These assessment and management activities require expert judgement and it is expected that indicators may inform but never replace this expert judgement.

Managing your researcher identity

As your research career develops you will most likely change institutions and posts, you may even change your name. It is important that all the information about your research outputs is accurate to ensure that you get the full credit for the citation activity of your publications.

NTU Affiliation

As set out in the NTU Publications Policy all research outputs produced at NTU must include the standard ‘Nottingham Trent University’ institutional affiliation (no abbreviations, etc.) and be linked with the appropriate researcher identifiers.

Research identifiers

You may find that you have different or multiple researcher identifiers in different databases; it is important that these are a truthful representation of you. If you come across any problems, follow the steps outlined in the Managing Your Researcher Identity guidance or contact the Library Research Team.

The simplest way to consolidate your researcher identities is to register for an ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). This is a persistent and unique digital identifier which works across the research landscape and throughout your research career; it can link to both your Scopus ID and Web of Science ResearcherID. Registering for an ORCID is a requirement for all research active staff and postgraduate researchers at NTU. The ORCID at NTU guide provides information on getting an ORCID, the essential ORCID fields that you need to complete, and how to populate your ORCID record with your research outputs.

Still need help?

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