The volume of published research output continues to grow at a rapid rate often making it difficult for the researcher to keep up with the literature in his or her field. Adding to this is the need to also demonstrate research impact and value. In the world of Scholarly Communication, the Internet has added yet another layer of complexity by increasing the number of ways one can now measure research impact.
Traditionally, research assessment has been predominantly determined by the Journal Impact Factor and article citation count. This method not only takes time before citations start to accumulate, it also provides a very limited picture of the article’s impact. Alternative metrics have surfaced, offering more immediate results. These results can come from social media or online attention metrics (e.g. mentions via Twitter, Facebook and Google+), number of downloads, shares or posts, mass media (coverage of research output from news outlets), and commentaries from scientific blogs.
Early this year, I met with a representative from Kudos and was intrigued with their service. Their “Step by Step tutorial for using Kudos” (4:00 min) presents an overview and summary of benefits.
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