IRJET- Re-Evaluating the Parameters for Finding Research Impact

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 05 Issue: 04 | Apr-2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2018, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 6.171 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 306
RE-EVALUATING THE PARAMETERS FOR FINDING RESEARCH IMPACT
Rajat Garg1, Pankaj Agarwal2
1UG Student, Department of CSE, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, India
2 Professor, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, India
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Abstract –The major objective of this research is to outline
the way of calculating a research’s impact which includes the
parameter considered for the calculation. Thenitlayemphasis
on the issues of current system; where it fails to address the
scenario like comparison of two research each related to a
different field and area. It then includes the suggestions made
on the front of parameters which if added with the existing
rules will open a new way of look towardssolution. Itallcomes
to the parameters which plays the important role in any
decision and if correct parameters are put in place it changes
the course of result and lead to a much more relevant, reliable
and robust output. Parameters included in the research are
already in use for different purposes but not for impact
calculation of a research which makes them unique of use in
this paper. The goal of this research is to achieve a system
which could cater the need of current demands and mitigate
the issues with the existing approaches. In this paper all the
statements are made to make the current system more
pronouncing.
Key Words: Impact factor, Citation Index, Parameters,
Weightage, Research Paper, Criteria
1. INTRODUCTION
A great number of methods are available today to calculatea
researcher’s impact based on number of evaluation criteria.
While researchers are concerned about important decision
being made solely based on such measures, the application
of the approach has been extended to every possible aspect
of researchers work and culture. Where the value of impact
index (widely considered h-index) depends on the database
used for calculating the number of citations. There are
possibilities of giving weightage to highly cited paper which
may lead to distribution of quality paper but still theywill all
depend on number of citation provided to an individual
paper. It makes the situation no more different since the
base criteria is the same.
Research impact is often measured using quantitative
methods such as citation counts, the h-index, and journal
impact factors. It can also be described qualitatively.
Currently, there is no one tool or system that completely
measures impact. Each database or tool uses its own
measurement systems, indices, data and authority files.
While current methods seem to be correct but they are
difficult to use to compare across disciplines that have
different researchandpublicationpractices.Furthermore,as
scholarly communicationcontinuestoevolve,thelimitations
of existing metrics and tools are becoming increasingly
evident. With this paper, we are trying to address this
problem by suggesting some more parameters like –
1. Weightage to Individual research area
2. Including Significance ofthetopicofresearchin
current scenario
3. Eliminating Self Citations of review papers
4. Combining Citations received by multiple
papers related to sametopicwitheliminationof
repetitive citations
2. DISCUSSION
Numerous tools and techniques are used to calculateimpact
of research like h-index which is an index quantify an
individual’s scientific research output, Citation analysis that
is the process whereby the impact or "quality" ofanarticleis
assessed by counting the number of times other authors
mention it in their work, Altmetrics a quantitative measure
of the quality and quantity of attention that a scholarly work
is receiving through social media, citations, and
article downloads and the impact factor which is a measure
of the frequency in which the average article in a journal is
cited in a particular year. Impact factors measure theimpact
of a journal, not the impact of individual articles. The raw
count of citations will vary depending on what the data
source includes, some are Web of Sciences, Google Scholar,
Publish or Perish, Scholarometer, Scopus, SciFinder Scholar
and MathSciNet.
Fig -1: Current Parameters for Impact Calculation

Although the use of impact factor-based indicators for
science policy purposes has increased over the last two
decades, several limitations have been pointed out and
should be borne in mind. Just Like Use of all the different
indexing methods makes it hard to compare for researchers
in different fields and at different career stages. None of the
methods include criteria based on the area of research,their
field of study, usefulness of research in current scenario or
any previous experience factor. Still, organizationsareusing
these methods to allocate funds, give promotions and other
benefits. Research ispaidfor bytaxpayers,organizationsand
individuals because of the benefits to society. Thesebenefits
might be economic if the research generates commercial
opportunities. They might be improvements toqualityoflife
or sustainability. But all of this is not taking place to the
required extent because of the outlined factthatcomparison
is unsustainable since comparing scientist from different
field like computer science, biology, nanomaterials using
same analogy does not make much of a sense and produce
less reliable results.
In concern of researcher’s individual impact, numerous
criteria could be introduced such as topic ofresearch,area of
publication, impact of previously accorded work inthesame
research plus the influence of material published by author
over a period of time are the factors which after coming
together will generate a better and more reliable result.
Here, area of publication would be included by providing
each area of research it’s own unique weightage based the
influence of the area. Topic of research is a factor which
emphasizes on the viability of research topic in the time of
publication. Let’s take an example, Researcher1 is working
on x technology which is used in 80’s and now become
obsolete and Researcher 2 is workingonytechnologywhere
research spread very recently. It is imminently clear that
Research 2 has more viability with time as compare to
Research 1 while both are termed research and used for
indexing.
3. METHODOLOGY
Increasing size of database with ever highest rate of
publication creates an ever increasing issue of generating
true results concerning the researcher’s impact. We are
proposing to include number of different criteria for
calculation to make the result a lot more reliable, robustand
sustainable.
Fig -2: New Parameters to be included
3.1 Weightage to Research Area
We are giving weightage to different streams of
science. Since, every research paper relates to one of field of
science and all of them have their own significance yet they
all are different. Then there should be a different parameter
for weighing papers of different streams.
Fig -3: Disciplines of Science
The easiest way to calculate weight is to calculatetheratioof
number of citations one area received during a period of
time with number of publications in the same time. It will
generate a weighing factor which will beusedwiththepaper
related to the weighted area. It will help in incorporatingthe
use of area in finding the impact of research.
3.2 Significance of Field of Research
Sub-field exists in the streams of sciences but all of
them does not has the same level of viability with respect to
the time and evolution of technology. Some fields become
obsolete over time either due to the amount of research
already been done or non usability of fieldinpractical terms.
The reason could be many while they never effect the
research’s so called impact but the reality does not seem to
be same because the research in this field will not generate
any significant impact in real world. For example, Computer

Science has many field available for research while now
research in database management is becoming less worthy
in the contrary research in fields like AI, MachineLearning&
Deep Learning is making real impact and changing the
computing world. Still, both are treated same for calculation
of research’s impact.
Fig -4: Fields in Computer Science
Our research proposes the need of considering the field of
research which affect the actual impact; should be added to
the calculation of theoretical impact. We propose use of
technology with readily available online database.
Algorithms can be made to extractdatabaseonlineasper the
required criteria just like for calculating impact based on
previous work on the same topic in the time consideration
would not be an issue because it could be easily found using
the keywords, filters and existing databases like Google
Scholar or Web of Sciences.
3.3 Considering the Journal’s Impact
It is widely acknowledged that research published in
good journal, highly reputed journal insamethejournal with
high journal impact factor is much better, unique and
trustful. Since, journal impact factor itself is calculated with
the paper published under it. While some journalsproduced
great researches and made their name. They have expertsin
their editorial board with high level of scrutiny.
Fig 5: Highly Reputed Journals
All the good will go in vain because journal’s good will
(Quantitative value) is never get considered for papers
impact. It is very important for the researcher to have its
paper in the above listed journals but in actual it never
makes any difference in researcher’s impact.
Thus, consideration of JIF is needed to make the calculation
of impact more truthful.
Fig -6: New Impact Factor
Suggestions made and methodology underlined can be used
with any of the existing indices and approaches with slight
alteration in the method. Data of the new parameters is
already available but neverusedincollaboration.Thesefacts
make the use of new parameters very easy. All the
parameters coming together will generate accumulated
impact of the paper which would lead to the finding of
researcher’s true impact in the near extent possible.
4. CONCLUSION
An extensive emphasis has been put on the parametersused
to generate a researcher’s impact with the methodologies
available to do that. Detailed discussion put in place about
the issues arise with the current use of system for our
research analysis. Despite of all the issues the paper laid a
strong foundation on the usage and benefits of new

parameters and found that mere use of number of citations
based on individual paper does not justify one’s true ability
of producing great results. Approaches use to calculate
impact irrespective of metric should greatly emphasize on
the details of paper, papers coverage with respect of area as
well as topic and research’s work scope. Changeinapproach
of calculating individual paper would not change the overall
researcher’s impact but will increase the emphasis on detail
with consideration of broader perspective which produce
best results.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our thanks to the IMS Engineering College for providing all
the resources required to accomplish the expected results.
We would also like to thank department chair of Computer
Science at IMSEC and all other professors and their
associates involved in the help for their overwhelming
support.
REFERENCES
[1] Richard Van Noorden. “Impact Factor Gets Heavyweight
Rival. “2016 Nature
[2] J. E. Hirsch. “An index to quantify anindividual’sscientific
research output.” Department of Physics, University of
California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0319 ,2005.
[3] Khaled Moustafa. “The Disaster of the Impact Factor.
“2014 Springer.
[4] Kai Simons “The Misused Impact Factor. Max Planck
Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden,
Germany”2008.
[5] Eugene Garfield. “How Can Impact Factors be Improved?
“, 1996
[6] George A. Lozano, Vincent Larivière and Yves Gingras.
“The weakening relationship between the impact factor and
papers' citations in the digital age “.2012
[7] William J. Sutherland, David Goulson, Simon G. Potts,
Lynn V. Dicks, “Quantifying the Impact and Relevance of
Scientific Research”. November 16, 2011
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027537
[8] Majdi Maabreh and Izzat M. Alsmadi, “A SurveyofImpact
and Citation Indices: Limitations and Issues”. International
Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 40, March,
2012
[9] Anil K Jain, “Impact factor: Measure of qualityofresearch
publication”. Indian J Orthop. 2011 Jul-Aug; 45(4):289–290.
doi: 10.4103/0019-5413.82330

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