Developing Comprehensive Indicators for Measuring Research Impact

Abstract

The global debate on the use and misuse of journal impact factor has been raging for several decades with the majority of authors, publishers and other stakeholders clearly admitting that equating journal impact factor to research impact could be misleading. Whereas the former strictly belongs to a journal in which an article is published, the latter belongs strictly to an individual research article or book irrespective of where it is published. On both sides, book citations are poorly factored in. Attempts by universities to equate journal impact factor to research impact for the purpose of employee promotion has only compounded this confusion, making urgent the need to identify and compile a comprehensive list of the indicators that go beyond journal-level impact down to media, classroom, cultural, economic and policy impacts of research. And this is for the benefit of all researchers including those in the poorly served book-based disciplines. This paper presents a list of twenty indicators of impact covering research published in both journals and books.