An introduction to demonstrating scholarly impact

*** In our Faculty/Staff user survey in Spring 2017 our respondents requested information on vanity publishers and scholarly impact.  This is our first step in sharing what we know about this topic.  Feel free to contact us for more information! ***

Measuring scholarly impact is a complex process, including both qualitative and quantitative factors.  Some of the essential pieces include:

• identifying high-impact publishers, 
• avoiding predatory/vanity publishers, 
• crafting your online scholarly presence, and 
• understanding the ever-evolving world of alternative metrics (altmetrics).  

Picking the right publisher

This video from Think.Check.Submit offers advice on choosing trusted journals to publish your research.



If you are interested in publishing in the highest ranking journals, Scimago Journal Rankings are helpful.  Another option is Eigenfactor.org, which uses an alternative algorithm to rank journals.

If you're looking at open access publishing, the Directory of Open Access Journals is reputable.  DOAJ reviews contents to make sure that publishers meet their criteria for inclusion, and sometimes removes publishers that are not making the grade.

Here is a list of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals.  Some common characteristics of low-quality vanity publishers are:

• publication of low quality material
• a business model in which the author pays the publisher
• mass e-mails to academics in unrelated fields
• very general calls for publication, including both subject area and type of content
• grammar and spelling errors in email or other communications and in the journal itself

Crafting your online scholarly presence

Taking a look, and making improvements when necessary, in how your work is represented online can be very influential in increasing your scholarly impact.  Here are some helpful links for managing your presence on social media:

• How to improve your Google Scholar profile--easy and quick! 
• How to increase the scholarly impact of your LinkedIn Profile (the information is a little dated, but most of it is still relevant)
• From Inside Higher Ed:  A Beginner's Guide to Establishing a Professional Online Presence

Understanding metrics

Traditionally, scholarly metrics (bibliometrics) focused on publishing in academic journals.  Places like Google Scholar can help you get citation metrics that demonstrate the impact of your work in most journals, books and book chapters, dissertations, and conference proceedings.

Due to the ever-changing world of scholarly publishing, researchers have looked for new ways to measure their output in non-traditional avenues, such as blogs and social media.  Altmetrics are different ways of measuring the impact and usage of scholarship.  Some examples include:

• social media sharing
• library holdings
• citations in blogs and wikis, 
• views and downloads in online repositories (source)

You can find more information at these links:

• A great guide to demonstrating impact in the Health Sciences from Bernard Becker Medical Library.
• A comprehensive guide to journal rankings, altmetrics, and other ways of demonstrating impact from Portland State University. 
• The library has recently purchased a number of books on scholarly/academic writing.  You can see them here.

Please contact the library if you have comments or questions!