It is possible to evaluate the "impact" of information sources – as opposed to the quality of the research itself – using a number of database options.

Evaluating Journals
When evaluating a journal’s status, consider whether articles published within the journal are peer reviewed. In the peer review process, the decision about an article’s suitability for publication is made only after a detailed assessment by a group of experts in the field.

 To determine if a publication is peer-reviewed:

• Check if the database you are searching allows you to limit your search to 'Scholarly Journals' or 'Refereed Journals'.
• Check the journal’s web site to see if it contains information about the peer review process.
• Otherwise, look up the journal name in Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory and check if it is 'Refereed'. Ulrich's can also be accessed via the Databases A-Z listing on the Library Databases page. (Note that peer reviewed journals may still contain editorials, news stories etc which are not peer reviewed articles).

It is also possible to evaluate the status of a peer reviewed journal via the journal’s "impact". 

Web of Science's Journal Impact Factor is determined by the average number of times articles from the journal, published in the past two years, have been cited in the most recent year. To look up Journal Impact Factors, select Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from the top menu bar within Web of Science. Watch the video in the media box below for "a complete overview of the Journal Impact Factor metric - learn how it's calculated, and how it's used."

Scopus's SJR SCImago Journal Rank indicators provide alternative journal metrics. SJR measures a journal's impact, influence or prestige based on the number of weighted citations received in the selected year by the articles published in the journal in the past three years. Citations are weighted using a methodology inspired by the Google PageRank algorithm. This means that in contrast to JCR where all citations are equal, in SJR, a citation from a source with a relatively high SJR is worth more than a citation from a source with a lower SJR. SJR also normalizes to take into account the different citation behaviour between disciplines. These differences mean that the SJR number and quartile are more likely to be different every year.

NOTE: Although the Computer Science and Information Technology discipline is currently relying on the Journal Impact Factor or SJR for journal ranking, the Computing Research & Education CORE Rankings Portal is still being used to determine the ranking of conference publications.

Evaluating Authors

There are two options for evaluating the professional standing of authors. In many databases, the results set can be analysed or ranked by author record count. This can be useful in determining the key researchers in an area.

At least two databases - Web of Science and Scopus -  also provide the option to create a citation report for a particular author and obtain their H-index. The H-index uses the distribution of citations received by an author’s publications to provide a simple measure author productivity and research impact.The H-index determines the highest number of publications by an author to have the same or a higher number of citations. An author with a H-index of 5 has at least 5 publications with 5 or more citations.

Note that the H-index does not take into account the variation between disciplines with regard to likely impact. Online tutorials on accessing the H-index function in Web of Science and Scopus are available (see below).

NOTE: Computer Science and Information Technology, and to a lesser extent Geospatial Science and Mathematics and Statistics can also gain valuable citation information from a new freely available database, Semantic Scholar
The database provides machine indexing of papers in computer science and neuroscience. At this stage some coverage of mathematics and geospatial science is also included and there are plans to extend the discipline scope to include biology, physics and the remaining hard sciences. Citations and references in the text are used to identify links between papers as well as the most influential papers. Records also highlight key phrases found in similar papers.

Video opens in a new window - Journal Citation Reports - Journal Impact Factor

Tutorial opens in a new window - Web of Science - Citation Reports (and H-index)

Look up an author in Web of Science 
Within Web of Science click on More to display the Author Search option.

Tutorial opens in a new window - Scopus - Searching for Authors (Includes H-index)

Look up an author in Scopus
Select Author Search

A number of researcher identifier systems are available to help you link your research outputs to your name. This is particularly important if you have a common name. Setting up all three options is recommended.

Option 1 : Web of Science's ResearcherID-Publons

• What is ResearcherID-Publons?
   
• ResearcherID-Publons FAQ
   
• ResearcherID & ORCID integration

Option 2 : ORCID

• What is ORCID?
   
• ORCID.org
   

Jan 2016 : News from the RMIT Research Office:

RMIT has joined ORCID

RMIT is one of 38 institutions to join the Australian ORCID Consortium. ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers.

All RMIT staff and students involved in research are encouraged to obtain an ORCID number, which acts as a global unique researcher identifier. Benefits of having this identifier are:

• it is unique (can distinguish your research activities from those of others with similar names)
• free
• quick to set up
• easy to maintain and connect with other organisational systems

Many of your colleagues already have an ORCID number, so join them now and start enjoying all the benefits.

Option 3 : Google Scholar Citations

Google Scholar Citations Overview