more than meets the “i” helping your scholar-practitioners demonstrate impact in the academy...
TRANSCRIPT
MORE THAN MEETS THE “I”Helping your scholar-practitioners
demonstrate impact in the academy &
beyond
Rosie Croft, Royal Roads UniversityKathleen Reed, Vancouver Island UniversityDana McFarland, Vancouver Island University
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
Vancouver Island University
• ‘Special purpose’ university offering programs solely in applied and professional fields of study with research activity that supports these programs.
• a student pop. of 2000 FTE, programming primarily delivered via distributed learning.
• Full time faculty of 50• Mostly graduate programs
Royal Roads University
• Known as a centre of excellence for teaching, applied research and learning
• a student pop. of 8150 FTE, 4 campuses
• Full time faculty of 350• 5 Masters programs: MBA,
Tourism, 3 Education• Nationally funded
undergraduate research projects
PURPOSE OF THE PROJECTAnd what we did
• Wanted to gauge faculty and student interest in a library service that would help them to measure and define their research impact, publicly or privately
• Individual 45min interviews with faculty• Asked about current understanding of
services that measure impact and what they have or have not done to promote their work
• Also asked more general questions about their engagement with social media
CONNECTING WITH FACULTY
And faculty connecting with the library• Invitation process• Researchers curious about their work• Faculty see you in a new light• ‘Flipping through the photo albums’• Create avenues to other services
(Institutional repository, collections, access)
“I’VE SEARCHED FOR MYSELF IN GOOGLE…”
From specific papers to self-promotion
• All faculty had at least run their names through Google for professional purposes
• Some already knew about Google Scholar profiles, some didn’t. Some very savvy and strategic.
• All understood the concept of journal impact factor
• Generally only physical scientists knew about Web of Science and/or Scopus
• Some (again, scientists) only interested in Web of Science, or only interested if works with Endnote
HOW FACULTY SEE THEMSELVES IN THE SYSTEM
• Stage of their career• Field of research• Informality of institutional requirements
around promotion• Focus of their work (research, teaching,
service)• Funding
ALT-METRICS RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
Demon or deliverer• Awareness of tools• Time• Time (again)• Which tools to use for what purpose• Stage of development of those tools• How the tools are viewed within their field• Advantages and disadvantages of engaging
with or reporting out results from social media
PROMOTION OF RESEARCH
• How faculty publish• Publishing by formula• Publishing as a game, or a hazing• Idea of disseminating research beyond
academe – knowledge mobilization and how to demonstrate community impact
• Institutional/professional accountability• Knowledge of and interest in Open Access
initiatives
ALT-METRICS TOOLS THAT ARE OUT THERE
A selection• http://www.mendeley.com• http://scholar.google.ca• http://altmetric.com• http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/alt-metrics/ • http://sciencecard.org/ • http://citedin.org/ • Reader Meter• http://impactstory.org• http://klout.com/home• http://orcid.org • http://www.carboncapturereport.org/ • http://www.plumanalytics.com/
GOOGLE SCHOLAR
MENDELEY
IMPACT STORY
PLUM ANALYTICShttp://demo.plu.mx/u/tschleyer/
FACULTY RESPONSECautious to uncontained enthusiasm
• “I would book an appointment tomorrow” • “I think I got more out of this than you did”• Some tools more mature than others• Cool factor• Skepticism• How to make comparisons across disciplines• Threat of being reduced to just numbers• Promise of measuring something they’ve
tried to capture for years
OPEN ACCESS OR PROPRIETARY?
The temptations (Not the singers)
• Impact journals vs open access journals• Refworks vs Mendeley vs Endnote• Impact story vs Plum Analytics
SERVICE IMPLICATIONSAnticipating challenges
• Copyright issues• How to build an audience on a case by case
basis• Helping people be intentional about profile
choices
