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Scholarly Communication

This guide gives an overview of scholarly communication, Open Access, and research metrics

Bibliometrics

Bibliometrics is the quantitative analysis of publications. It can be used alongside qualitative, expert assessment to provide evidence of academic impact.

This guide provides information about the most common tools that individual researchers or research administrators can use to measure their own or their institutions citation impact.  It is important that research metrics are used responsibly, in a fair, transparent and robust way.

Journal Citation impact: The impact of particular academic journals can be measured by the number of times their articles are cited and where they are cited.

Researcher Citation impact: The number of works a researcher has published and the number of times these works have been cited can be an indicator of the academic impact of an individual researcher

Output (Article/Book) Citation Impact: The academic impact of particular works, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, and books, can be measured by the number of times they are cited by other works

Altmetrics: Measures that capture the attention a resource generates on the social web, mainstream media, policy documents or other sources. They can be applied to journal articles, books/book chapters, software, datasets, websites, videos, etc.

San Francisco Declaration on Research Impact

There are many ways to assess research impact and outcomes and researchers should aim to assess their research based on its own merits and they should not rely solely on journal publication and journal impact factors.  The Government of Canada's research funding agencies, along with many other funding agencies and institutions around the world have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). DORA aims "to improve the ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated by funding agencies, academic institutions, and other parties."

The main themes in the declaration are:

  • the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, in funding, appointment, and promotion considerations;
  • the need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published; and
  • the need to capitalize on the opportunities provided by online publication (such as relaxing unnecessary limits on the number of words, figures, and references in articles, and exploring new indicators of significance and impact).