Tuesday, November 24, 2009

New Media P & T Changing Research Impact

As research results move online, the measurement of scientific impact is beginning to look more like the ways in which we measure web-based material. The result is that issues surrounding promotion and tenure may be less troublesome for faculty whose work appears on the web for both teaching and outreach.

In short, all work whether research, teaching or outreach may be reflected in web-based impact assessments.

In a very interesting article, Neylon and Wu, discuss the multiple ways in which the impact of research articles may be measured in the future. They suggest the range of measures could include downloads, page views, citations in articles, blogs, etc., comments, ratings by other scientists/readers, bookmarks, blog coverage, trackbacks and so forth.

Many new media scholars have been concerned about how their work will be reviewed and how their impact will be measured. If Neylon and Wu are correct about the ways in which most research is headed, then there will be few differences between new media scholars and more traditional disciplines.

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