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Strategies for increasing impact

Evidence of research impact can come in a variety of forms, both qualitative and quantitative, and should by no means be limited to bibliometrics. Check out Concordia's Pathways to Impact initiative for more information.

In 2024, Concordia University signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). DORA's document on the responsible use of quantitative indicators in research assessment may be particularly helpful for those interested in how bibliometrics fit into the responsible research assessment conversation.

From a bibliometrics perspective, research has been done on different factors and their effects on citation impact. Some common strategies for increasing citation impact are listed below:

  • Visibility: Make it easy for others to access your work by publishing in an Open Access journal and/or maximize the exposure of your publications by depositing open access versions in Spectrum, Concordia University’s Institutional Research Repository. Papers in Spectrum are indexed by Google Scholar, potentially increasing the visibility of your work.

For different studies that have been done on the impact of open access and citations see the resources provided by The Open Citation Project or SPARC Europe.

  • Usability: Deposit your original research data into a repository. If another researcher uses your data in their own research, there is a good chance that they will be citing your work. For more information on data deposition and granting agency requirements, please see Concordia Library's Research Data Management Guide.

For studies related to data deposition and citation impact, see "Data reuse and the open data citation advantage" by Piwowar & Vision.

  • Accessibility: When sharing your work with others, be sure to provide a stable, persistent link to your content. The best way to do this is through your document’s DOI. See our guide on creating a permanent link to your article using its DOI.
  • Search engine optimization: Online publishing and dissemination is changing the way researchers write articles. To be spotted, articles must be structured with search engines in mind.
    • Include important keywords in your abstract and title (the text fields most usually searched and read).
    • Avoid unnecessarily flowery language if possible.
  • Get counted: When publishing always use the same name variant. Your publication impact profile (particularly for journal articles) may be misrepresented when:
    • Authors alternate between using middle initials and/or shortened versions of their first names.
    • You publish under multiple names e.g. an author marries and switches to publishing under their married name or a hyphenated name.
    • Your papers are difficult to identify from those by authors with a similar name in citation databases.

Therefore:

  • Use a constant name syntax when publishing where possible and consider creating a researcher profile
  • When publishing always use the same institutional name variant, including the complete University address when submitting your manuscript for publication, as the address of the affiliation field is often used to retrieve publication outputs.