Quantifying the Impact of My Publications: Tracking Your Work

There are a number of reasons for tracking how your work is being used. Reasons include:

• Publication data are your “public profile.” Learn which authors and institutions are using your work.
• How and why is your work being used? Look at citations and alternative metrics to assess impact.
• Tenure/Promotion
• Grants
  • NIH Biosketches (Contributions to Science section)
  • NSF Biosketches (Synergistic Activities)
  • Grant applications and renewals

Other Reasons:

• Confirm that research findings were properly attributed and credited
• Determine if research findings are duplicated, confirmed, corrected, improved or repudiated
• Determine if research findings were extended (different human populations or animal models/species), etc.
• Document the uptake of your research
• Identify similar research projects
• Identify possible collaborators
• Document research impact
• Quantify return on research investment

Telling Impact Stories: Video from Cushing/Hay Medical Library at Yale University.

1.  Create author citation alerts in databases to be notified when your work is cited by another work. Alerts can be set to run daily, weekly, or monthly and can be sent via email or RSS feed as well in specific formats such html. Examples of databases that offer citation tracking for authors:

• Scopus: Author Citation Alerts tutorial
• Web of Science: Citation Alerts tutorial

2.  Establish an author profile in Google Scholar and create an alert to be notified when your work is cited by another work.

3.   Establish a Google Alert based on your name or research study for email notification of the latest relevant Google results on the alert.

4.  Use the free Altmetric bookmarklet to track other forms of metrics (non-citations) for your published journal articles.  Drag the Bookmarklet to your browser's bookmarks bar and use this for any journal article to learn of any "engagement" activity for a journal article. See Article Metrics for more information.

5. Use the new Article Metrics Module in Scopus.

“By combining citation and alternative metrics, this new Article Metrics module will provide a comprehensive view of both the impact of and community engagement with an article.”

The Scopus Article Metrics includes the following metrics:

• Usage — Usage tracks when an article is clicked, read, downloaded, or viewed, etc. 
• Captures— Captures track when users bookmark or save an article, or note as a favorite.
• Mentions — Mentions track blog posts, comments, reviews, and Wikipedia links about an article.
• Social Media — Social Media tracks likes, shares, and tweets about an article.

In addition to these metrics, Scopus is introducing new percentile benchmarks to show how article citations or activity compare with the averages for similar articles, taking into account:

• Date of publication
• Document type
• Disciplines associated with its source

The full metric module is available from the document details sidebar on the Scopus record page. The Metrics sidebar highlights the minimal number of meaningful metrics a researcher needs to evaluate both citation impact and levels of community engagement. Click on “View All Metrics” to be directed to the full metric module.