RIMS: The Research Impact Measurement Service at the University of New South Wales

Abstract

In 2005, the Library at UNSW began a comprehensive restructuring process that fundamentally changed the provision of services to its academic community. A primary aim of this process was to increase flexibility of service development and delivery and so to improve research support. The motivation for reformed services arose from considerations including the University Library need to realign its services to support the university's strategic goals, the increasingly competitive nature of the research environment, the introduction of the RQF/ERA, and a renewed emphasis on research outcomes by UNSW. The measurement of research impact using bibliometrics was seen as a strategy for supporting UNSW researchers. University Library staff consulted the bibliometrics literature and apropriate methodologies were devised to measure the impact of publications, authors and departments. The result was the creation of a Research Impact Measurement Service (RIMS) that now produces over 30 reports every month and employs 6-7 full time equivalent staff. Most of the reports are used to support promotion, grants, and institutional comparisons. This research support service also informs and improves the performance of such traditional library activities as collection development. RIMS is now integral to the measurement of research outputs at UNSW, and has significantly raised the profile of the Library throughout the academic community. AARL June 2009 vol 40 no 2 pp76-87 MPACT ATDownloaded by [130.108.121.217]

RIMS Revisited: The Evolution of the Research Impact Measurement Service at UNSW Library

“…As previously reported (Drummond and Wartho 2009) the reorganised structure of Academic Services at UNSW Library enabled the delivery of RIMS which began in 2007. From its inception, RIMS became a highly sought after service as researchers, schools and faculties struggled to tell their impact story for an increasing number of professional purposes.…”

“…As previously reported (Drummond and Wartho 2009), RIMS was created in response to a number of drivers in the research environment both internal and external, particularly in the area of research evaluation and performance measurement.…”

Research Support in Australian Academic Libraries: Services, Resources, and Relationships

“…With that came demands for improved research performance from academic staff. Although academic librarians had been aware of and sometimes used citations sources, the ERA raised that awareness and created an impetus for 2 service development and research in the LIS field (Drummond & Wartho, 2009;Haddow & Genoni, 2009). An ERA round also involves extensive publications' data collection and verification, for which institutional repositories, managed by the library in most cases, have been pivotal.…”

Designing Libraries for Research Collaboration in the Network World: An Exploratory Study

“…Libraries are accordingly moving into areas such as funding opportunities and grant writing, ethics review, data curation and repository management, poster design and conference hosting (physical and virtual), journal and monograph publishing, bibliometric evaluation and impact assessment (Adema & Schmidt, 2010;Carroll, 2011a;Crow et al, 2012;Delserone, Kelly, & Kempf, 2010;Drummond & Wartho, 2009;Furlough, 2010;Healy, 2010;Herther, 2009;Lyon, 2012;McBain, Culshaw, & Walkley Hall, 2013;Vaughan et al, 2013), alongside their established roles in collection stewardship, resource procurement and information literacy. The development of support for the management of research data in line with national policy is a particular concern (Carlson & Kneale, 2011;Gold, 2007;Lynch, 2008;Lyon, 2012).…”

“…The 2013 Ithaka survey of US library directors indicates that almost two-thirds of respondents in doctoral institutions expect to increase staffing for specialized faculty research support (Long & Schonfeld, 2014). Others have decided that traditional structures, such as the subject-specialist information consultant model, are no longer viable, and have reorganized their staffing to align with the broad institutional missions of research and teaching, or adopted business enterprise structures, with teams dedicated to service development and innovation (Andrade & Zaghloul, 2010;Cotta-Schønberg, 2007;Covert-Vail & Collard, 2012;Drummond & Wartho, 2009;Franklin, 2009;Manchester University Library, 2012;Nutefall & Chadwell, 2012).…”