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Academia has relied on citation count as the main way to measure the impact or importance of research, informing metrics such as the Impact Factor and the h-index. But how well do these metrics actually align with researchers’ subjective evaluation of impact and significance?
A single academic paper, published by three Australian researchers in 2007, has been cited by Wikipedia editors over 2.8 million times - the next most popular work only shows up a little more than 21,000. And the researchers behind it didn't have a clue.
Some evidence showing that the more revisions a paper undergoes, the greater its subsequent recognition in terms of citation impact.
We are entering a new era - the Impact Era - where increasingly philanthropists are grounding their generosity in decisions focused on having a real social impact. And, in response, nonprofit organizations are learning to refocus their strategies to maximize that impact.
While rates of productivity were broadly similar, citation rates were found to be higher for transdisciplinary students, as were indicators of collaboration such as co-authorship.
Societal impact should be rated more highly in scientific publishing and research evaluation. To this end, we suggest that ways to achieve it should be introduced as an important component of curricula at higher-education institutions.
A paper documenting strong and robust negative correlations between the length of the title of an economics article and different measures of scientific quality.
The Journal Impact Factor is, by far, the most discussed bibliometric indicator. Since its introduction over 40 years ago, it has had enormous effects on the scientific ecosystem. This paper by Cassidy R. Sugimoto provides a brief history of the indicator and highlights well-known limitations.
Switzerland appears to have three key factors for success in getting a surprisingly high proportion of its researchers’ articles cited in the scientific literature: it’s a small country, it’s research investment is large compared to other countries, and importantly, its hosting of the Large Hadron Collider is a drawcard for collaborative research.
A small group of fewer than 30 universities are having a bigger impact on the inventions driving global economic growth than the world’s major industrialised nations.
Research impact is often talked about, but how clear is it what this term really means? The authors highlight four core elements that comprise most research impact definitions and propose a new conceptualisation of research impact relevant to health policy.
A clear citation advantage for open publishing with open available documents receiving twice as many citations.
In some subjects, the impact factor of journal articles is as good a reflection of research quality as judgements by a panel of experts.
