Research Metrics: Home

Traditional research metrics typically measure the impact of scholarly works through citations. Various metrics based on citation counts have been developed to track impact at the article-level, author-level, and journal-level.

Altmetrics attempts to move away from traditional citation-based metrics and instead use new ways of assessing impact of scholarship online typically based on social media attention and indications of readership.

This guide will introduce you to many of these measures and how to apply them to your work. But this topic is not without controversy. A Responsible Metrics Movement has emerged in recent years to address the problematic nature and use of some of these metrics. 

Please see the tabs to the left of this box for the topics covered.

Please contact your liaison librarian for additional support.

This guide was created, and is maintained by DeDe Dawson, Science & Scholarly Communication Librarian.

This guide was inspired by the Scholarly Metrics guide from Johns Hopkins University. Thank you to the librarians at Sheridan Libraries for their kind permission to adapt some of their content!