Wednesday, November 15, 2006
245-14

Evaluation of WSARE Research and Education Grants: Utilizing Google Scholar and Science Citation Index to Obtain Citation Amounts, and thus Measurable Impact.

Rachel Smith1, Jay M. Payne2, and V. Philip Rasmussen1. (1) Utah State Univ, Western Regional SARE Program, Ag Science Bldg 305, 4865 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-4865, (2) Utah State Univ, P.O. Box 1211, Logan, UT 84322

Western SARE, Western Regional Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, awards grants every year to researchers for projects which integrate sustainability into their current line of research. An inventory of measurable impact of the grants awarded aids in determining how effective the funds of Western SARE have been. An inexpensive way to determine measurable impact is quantifying the citations a certain scientific paper, stemming from the grant, has received. This is accomplished by first looking up the listed articles in each final report in both Google Scholar and the Science Citation Index. Since Google Scholar lists forms of publications other than scientific journals, the two sources are cross referenced to obtain the total number of citations for that article. After counting the references from listed publications, Google Scholar and Science Citation Index are used to further investigate secondary publications stemming from the original WSARE research project. Then, the listed articles, as well as secondary publications, are then classified into categories based on the Experiment Station system of classifying different types of publications. The categories for the Experiment Station system are type one for refereed journals, type two for master’s thesis as well as extension publications, and type three for popular journals and newspaper articles. The amount of citations per publication is recorded for each WSARE funded project, and thus measurable impact was determined. Theoretically, if the scientific community is aware of the project and its results, then it will trickle down to the farmer through extension. By this means, we can obtain measurable results for the dissemination of information as a result of WSARE funding.