Assessing and Reporting Research Impact – A Role for the LibraryKristi L. Holmes, PhDDirector, Galter Health Sciences Library

Associate Professor, Preventative Medicine-Health and Biomedical Informatics

Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8420-5254

NISO Virtual Conference: 

Transforming Assessment: Alternative Metrics and Other Trends

June 18, 2014

overview

• Impact metrics - the ususal suspects and more • A view from the library

• Identifying needs• Roles played by libraries• Developing services

• Moving this space forward on the local and larger level

impact metrics – why do we care?

• Quantify and document research impact

• Justify future requests for funding

• Quantify return on research investment

• Discover how research findings are being used

• Identify similar research projects

• Identify possible collaborators• Determine if research findings

are duplicated, confirmed, corrected, improved or repudiated

• Determine if research findings were extended (different human populations, different animal models/species, etc.)

• Confirm that research findings were properly attributed/credited

• Demonstrate that research findings are resulting in meaningful health outcomes

• Discover community benefit as a result of research findings

• Progress reports• Tenure• Promotion dossiers

https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment/model

alternative metrics• Twitter• Facebook• Blogs• Research Highlights• Google+• Main Stream Media• Reddit• Forums• Q&A – StackExchange• Pintrest• LinkedIn• FigShare • F1000 Reviews• GitHub

Thelwall M, Haustein S, Larivière V, Sugimoto CR (2013) Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web Services. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64841. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064841

Konkiel S (2013) Altmetrics: A 21st-Century Solution to Determining Research Quality. Information Today. Available at http://www.infotoday.com/OnlineSearcher/Articles/Features/Altmetrics-A-stCentury-Solution-to-Determining-Research-Quality-90551.shtml

ArticlesDatasets

SlidesSoftware

Webpages

Understanding the impact of research is a massive task.

How do we understand the impact of a published work?

A person? A research center?

A university?

What IS impact?

Ioannidis JA, Khoury MJ. Assessing Value in Biomedical Research: The PQRST of Appraisal and Reward. JAMA. Published online June 09, 2014. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.6932.

• We need to move assessment toward “desired outcomes: research that is productive, high-quality, reproducible, shareable, and translatable (PQRST)”

• Productivity metrics should reward high-influence science rather than least publishable units and decrease publication bias against negative results.

Research impact and assessment

go beyond counts!

https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment

Investigate and adapt frameworks to help put

things into context

More and more organizations and efforts are considering the impact of their work through frameworks.

The Becker Model (Cathy Sarli)Frameworks from the IOM, CDC, and NIEHSSnowball MetricsDiscipline-specific approachesand more…

go beyond counts!

https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment

Investigate and adapt frameworks to help put

things into context

The Becker Model

• Provides a supplement to publication analysis to provide a more robust and comprehensive perspective of biomedical research impact.– reporting templates, glossary of resources and terms, examples of

relevant indicators of impact across the research process, and readings

• Straightforward framework for tracking diffusion of research outputs and activities to locate indicators that demonstrate evidence of biomedical research impact– individual, core, and institutional-level; modify for different disciplines

• Guidance for quantifying and documenting research impact as well as resources for locating evidence of impact.

• Strategies for enhancing the impact of research

strategies for enhancing the impact of research

https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment/strategies

Repetition, consistency, and an awareness of the intended

audience form the basis of most the strategies.

The strategies focus upon Preparing for Publication,

Dissemination, and Keeping Track of Your Research.

Optimizing discoverability and access of your research is the

surest way to enhance its visibility and impact.

Suggestions for researchers and recommendations to reach out to

their library for assistance.

Understanding the impact of research is a massive task.

How do we understand the impact of a published work?

A person? A research center?

A university?

What IS impact?

How do we scale up and operationalize this process?

How do we support it locally from the library?

leverage ongoing efforts on the local level and beyond

• ORCID• CASRAI• CERIF• VIVO-ISF ontology• NISO Altmetric work

• CV/Biosketch • Large-scale semantic search

• Institutional repositories

• Research networking systems

• Institutional research information and management systems

• Analytical and benchmarking efforts

• Tracking and evaluation

VIVO lends itself to research assessment and impact

• Facilitates a more robust research ecosystem

– Diffusion of research products

– Discovery of shared products

– Reproducibility

– Translation

– Enables credit and visibility by showcasing individual achievements and expertise

• Supports team-based science and collaboration

• Allows better large-scale understanding of the research enterprise

– Temporal relationships (career development, time from publication to research synthesis)

– Peer comparisons

– Strategic planning and visualization

– Identify emerging trends

• Enables more efficient means of collecting & representing meaningful outputs en masse

• New experimental protocols• Datasets• Instrumentation• Software code• New diagnostic criteria• New standard of care• Curriculum guidelines• Measurement instruments• Continuing education

materials• Clinical/practice guidelines

VIVO lends itself to research assessment and impact

• Facilitates a more robust research ecosystem

– Diffusion of research products

– Discovery of shared products

– Reproducibility

– Translation

– Enables credit and visibility by showcasing individual achievements and expertise

• Supports team-based science and collaboration

• Allows better large-scale understanding of the research enterprise

– Temporal relationships (career development, time from publication to research synthesis)

– Peer comparisons

– Strategic planning and visualization

– Identify emerging trends

• Enables more efficient means of collecting & representing meaningful outputs en masse

• New experimental protocols• Datasets• Instrumentation• Software code• New diagnostic criteria• New standard of care• Curriculum guidelines• Measurement instruments• Continuing education

materials• Clinical/practice guidelines

VIVO can help operationalize this process:

Enhance profiles by incorporating meaningful outputs to enhance content and value; can facilitate dissemination and discovery of scholarship

The ontology is the key…

• Plum Analytics gathers metrics across five categories—usage, mentions, captures, social media and citations.

• Metrics are gathered around artifacts

• Collected information is displayed in visualizations, dashboards, and widgets.

• Customized for the institution or organization.

ARTIFACTSarticles

blog postsbook chapters

bookscases

clinical trialsconference papers

datasetsfiguresgrants

interviewslettersmedia

patentsposters

presentationssource code

theses / dissertationsvideos

webpages

http://www.ebscohost.com/newsroom/stories/plum-analytics-becomes-part-of-ebsco-information-services

IR integration

IR integration

Courtesy of Plum

IR integration

Benefits?1. Create a feedback loop for researchers that

gives them timely insight into the impact of their research right from the start

2. Easy access to advanced metrics from PlumX can help build buy-in from researchers, increasing repository support by your contributors

3. Aggregated metrics and reports from the PlumX dashboard puts the repository at the center of communicating about the impacts of your organization’s research

Courtesy of Plum

a spectrum of possibilities…

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Linear_visible_spectrum.svg

Integrate altmetrics in your IR

Lead or support

RNS project (VIVO, etc)

Run citation reports

ORCID services and

support

Encourage prudent use of

online toolsWelcome deposit of alternative outputs

in your IR

Keep current

Collaborate with TT office to

track outputs

Develop standard

reports/visualizations/analyses Hire an impact

and evaluation librarian

Workshop on strategies for

enhancing research impact Run

publication data reports

Establish a consultation

service

Help researchers

obtain DOIs and understand data

options

Understand motivations of funding agencies

local success depends on stakeholder engagement

• Stay up to date on scholarly issues and the scholarly workflow

• Stay up to date on funding/reporting requirements• Brainstorm to identify and understand motivations of

stakeholders• Anticipate need and present solutions• Call on advocates• Think beyond ‘business as usual’• Be persistent!

resources• BECKER MODEL, MOTIVATIONS: https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment/model • Thelwall M, Haustein S, Larivière V, Sugimoto CR (2013) Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web

Services. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64841. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064841• Konkiel S (2013) Altmetrics: A 21st-Century Solution to Determining Research Quality. Information Today. Available at

http://www.infotoday.com/OnlineSearcher/Articles/Features/Altmetrics-A-stCentury-Solution-to-Determining-Research-Quality-90551.shtml

• Ioannidis JA, Khoury MJ. Assessing Value in Biomedical Research: The PQRST of Appraisal and Reward. JAMA. Published online June 09, 2014. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.6932. Available at http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1881107.

• BECKER MODEL: https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment• BECKER MODEL - STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING RESEARCH IMPACT:

https://becker.wustl.edu/impact-assessment/strategies • ORCID: http://orcid.org/• ORCID OUTREACH MEETING (with some great ideas and approaches for libraries):

https://orcid.org/content/orcid-outreach-meeting-and-codefest-may-2014 • CASRAI: http://casrai.org/• VIVO: http://vivoweb.org/• VIVO-ISF ONTOLOGY (info and how to participate/learn more):

https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/VIVO/VIVO-ISF+Ontology • CERIF: http://www.eurocris.org/Index.php?page=CERIFreleases&t=1 • CONVERIS RESEARCH INFORMATION SYSTEM: http://www.converis5.com/• VIVO DATA DASHBOARDS AND VISUALIZATIONS: contact kristi.holmes@northwestern.edu for more information• PLUM ANALYTICS: http://www.plumanalytics.com/• PLUM METRICS: http://www.plumanalytics.com/metrics.html and the PLUM PRINT:

http://blog.plumanalytics.com/post/87893660825/visualizing-impact-the-plum-print • ALTMETRIC: http://www.altmetric.com/• ALTMETRIC FOR INSTITUTIONS: http://www.altmetric.com/institutional-edition.php

AcknowledgementsSupport:• Northwestern University

Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, NIH award 8UL1TR000150-05

• VIVO - DuraSpace

Thanks:• Cathy Sarli, MLS, AHIP

• Karen Gutzman – NLM Fellow

• Andrea Michalek at Plum @amichalek

• VIVO Community @VIVOcollab

• Galter Health Sciences Library

Questions:@kristiholmes

kristi.holmes@northwestern.edu

Thank you!