Measuring Impact  

Citation counts, journal impact factors and identifying library holdings are measures that may assist you with your research, grant applications, promotion or the Excellence in Research for Australia. Using a variety of Library and web tools is one way to identify research quality and impact.

No one tool below covers all journals, journal articles or books. A combination of results provides a more complete picture within the bounds of each of the tool's coverage, searching capabilities and the searcher's expertise.

High impact journals
Identifying the impact factor of a journal provides an indication of the quality of the average journal article. Journals with high impact factors are cited more frequently. Academics and researchers are encouraged to publish in high impact journals where possible. There are well documented limitations in the use of this tool particularly for the arts and humanities and creative arts.
For more information view High impact journals.

Who's citing my paper? Including Citation Report and  h-index
The Web of Science database, whose data is used in university league tables, identifies journal articles that have cited your paper or book in the journal article reference list. Remember that Web of Science only covers a selected number of journals. You will need to use other methods to find cited authors not listed in Web of Science. 
For more information view Who's citing my paper?
For more information view Citation Report and h-index.

Google Scholar also produces citation data. Used with the Publish or Perish software it creates citation metrics including the h-index. 
For more information view Google Scholar.

Who's citing my book?
At present there is no Library database equivalent to Web of Science that identifies citing references from book bibliographies. Citation data from Google Scholar can be imported into the Publish or Perish software.
For more information view Who's citing my book?

Identifying library holdings for book titles
Another measure for book publications is to identify the number of libraries that hold a copy of your title, nationally and internationally. Remember that not all libraries identify all book titles.
For more information view Identifying library holdings for book titles.

Research Online
University of Wollongong academics and researchers are encouraged to upload their journal articles, book chapters and conference papers to Research Online. Valuable data is provided to the author via a monthly email detailing the number of downloads to each fulltext file.
For more information view Research Online.

Need more help?
If you would like to discuss any of these tools or organise a workshop for your school, please contact Lucia Tome, Academic Outreach Team Leader.