WASP (Write a Scientific Paper): Understanding research metrics.

Research metrics are quantitative measurements that identify and acknowledge research output while enhancing article, author and journal impact within the academic community. The article impact depends on the number of times that same article is cited by other authors, while an author's impact depends on the number of citations received on the total number of published articles by the same author. With the advancement in technology and the increased availability of open access journals, article-level metrics has become a popular metric. This is the aggregation of the traditional article citations and the article online presence through blogs, tweets and newspapers, which further enhances the author's impact within the academic community. A journal's impact will depend on the average number of citations received by the articles published within the journal over a period of time. The academic reputation within the academic community will therefore depend on both article and author metrics and is further enhanced by publishing in high impact journals.