Measuring Research Impact

In order to support George Mason Unversity faculty seeking promotion and tenure, the Libraries provided a workshop about measuring and describing research impact in September and October, 2024.  The hour-long workshop was co-taught by Rachel Borchardt, Scholarly Communications Librarian, American University and Anne Osterman, Dean of Libraries, George Mason University. 

It included traditional metrics for describing impact, such as journal rankings, citation counts, and author indexes, as well as approaches that reflect more recent concepts in scholarly communication, such as altmetrics, open access, and public impact. The goals were:

1. Understand how to express impact in a variety of ways, and successfully locate and use different impact measures
2. Articulate broader impact strategies, including public impact
3. Understand the benefits of open access and its role in impact

Research is evaluated in a variety of contexts

• Tenure and promotion
• Grant applications
• Awards

Historically, impact has centered on scholarly impact

• Citation counts

• Acceptance rates

• Reviews

There is increasing interest in other forms of impact, along with tools to measure

• Practitioner

• Community

• Policy

• Societal impact