Category Archives: News
Top 100 – Altmetrics – 2017
The Altmetric Top 100 2017 is here! Check out this year’s list of the most talked about articles. http://altmetric.com/top100
What are Altmetrics?
- Attention to research outputs in non-traditional sources, e.g. policy documents, news, blogs and social media
- Indicators of research impact
- Help understand how research is being received and used
- Complementary to traditional citation-based analysis
Why Altmetrics?
- Provide a more coherent understanding of research attention
- Understand the broader reach and early impact of research
- Track attention to a broad range of research outputs, including articles, posters, data sets and working papers, etc.
- Help researchers get credit for impact activities
Advantages of Metrics for Single Research Outputs
- Real-time, immediate feedback on attention to scholarly content
- Useful for early career researchers whose work may not have accrued citations
- Showcase attention to a research output beyond academia
- Not biased by an over-arching metric
The Altmetric Bookmarklet
The free Bookmarklet lets you instantly retrieve altmetrics data for any article.

To install, go to: http://altmetric.it
Remember that the Numbers Don’t Tell You…
- Quality of the paper
- Quality of the researchers
- Whole story
Adapted from https://www.altmetric.com/
Monitoring the transition to open access
(Published 5 December 2017)
The proportion of UK research which is available via open access is increasing at a considerable rate, with 37% of research outputs freely available to the world immediately at publication.
This report, the second in a series commissioned by the Universities UK Open Access Coordination Group, aims to build on previous findings, and to examine trends over the period since the major funders of research in the UK established new policies to promote open access.
The research was delivered by a partnership involving Research Consulting, the University of Sheffield and Elsevier, and was led by Jubb Consulting.
Key findings include:
Research E-Bulletin – December 2017 (Issue 2)
With Christmas just around the corner, welcome to the December issue of our Research e-bulletin. Bringing all the Faculties and Institutes research news, events and information from across the RSB Office and The Graduate School.
Want to receive the e-bulletin?
If you do not receive our monthly e-bulletin, but would like to please email the team at rsb@northampton.ac.uk
Research Impact at UK Parliament
The UK Parliament is delighted to announce the launch of a new web hub for academic researchers.
‘Research Impact at the UK Parliament'<http://www.parliament.uk/research-impact> provides comprehensive information for researchers and universities on how they can engage with Parliament.
The hub answers three key questions:
• What is Parliament interested in?
• How does Parliament use research?
• Why engage with Parliament?
It provides essential information on ways to engage with Parliament and stay up to date, as well as contact details of parliamentary teams and staff who work with research to support Parliamentarians.
The pages feature a variety of case studies in which researchers from across the UK, and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, write about their experiences of working with a number of parliamentary offices.
REF 2021 – Decisions on Staff & Outputs
A summary for staff at the University of Northampton can be found in the yammer research support group site.
Any questions – email REF@Northampton.ac.uk
Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz appearing on the BBC, The One Show
Our Research team from the Computing Department and Moulton College are developing a sensor to detect lameness in sheep. Associate Professor Dr. Ali Al-Sherbaz will be appearing on the BBC One – The One Show tonight at 7pm. Tune in to find out more about this research, how this infection costs UK farming about £80m/yr and whether the solution could lie in a ‘Fitbit’ for sheep.
Research E-Bulletin – November 2017 (Issue 1)
Welcome to the first issue of our new look Research e-bulletin. Our e-bulletin is produced on a monthly basis and brings all the Faculties and Institutes research news, events and information from across the RSB Office and The Graduate School.
Want to receive the e-bulletin?
If you do not receive our monthly e-bulletin, but would like to please email the team at rsb@northampton.ac.uk
Happy Birthday ORCID!
ORCID is FIVE today! Congratulations!
They’ve launched lots of new resources to celebrate! https://orcid.org/blog/2017/10/16/celebrating-orcid5-launch-new-resources …
The University of Northampton has 433 registered ORCID Ids… If you haven’t got yours yet, register today at www.orcid.org
ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized. Find out more.
Research Gate
Please note that Research Gate has begun removing articles that don’t meet publisher’s policies. If you have articles on Research Gate, please ensure that you have uploaded the accepted manuscript to NECTAR – staff will check publisher’s policies and make available what they can, or direct to the publisher’s version if no open access option is available.