Tracking Your Research

This guide presents the tools that available to measure the quantitative and qualitative impact of researchers and research. 

Quantitative measures include h-index, citation counts, journals impact factors. Research impact can be demonstrated qualitatively in terms of social and cultural applications and measures of esteem: ARC Research Impact Principles and Framework.

Researcher and research metrics can be used to support: 

• applications for grant funding
• applications for promotion
• your research profile
• Department and Faculty reviews and National Assessment exercises such as ERA  

Contact your Research Librarians for assistance with:

• assessing your research impact
• using and comparing results from databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar
• identifying highly ranked journals in your field

For assistance with research impact in the context of academic promotion at Macquarie, please visit the Academic Promotion page.

It is important to remember that no single metric measurement is all-encompassing.

Cite the metric measurement and tool you have used to ensure context. 

Article level citations:

• number of times an article is cited
• altmetrics (eg page views, downloads and blog posts about an article)

Journal quality & impact:

• number of articles published in a journal each year
• number of journals in a subject area
• half-life of journals
• cited half-life of journals

Researcher impact:

• number of times a researcher is cited
• number of publications