Tell the story of your research impact with Dr. Beth Blackwood

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,860
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

2
00:00:05,860 --> 00:00:11,260
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

3
00:00:11,260 --> 00:00:17,340
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

4
00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:22,380
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

5
00:00:22,380 --> 00:00:27,780
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

6
00:00:27,780 --> 00:00:29,200
program.

7
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:35,480
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

8
00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:40,580
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

9
00:00:40,580 --> 00:00:46,200
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

10
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:51,800
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

11
00:00:51,800 --> 00:01:01,080
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

12
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:02,180
All right, everybody.

13
00:01:02,180 --> 00:01:04,520
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

14
00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:06,240
I'm Toyosi Onwuemene, your host.

15
00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:07,720
I'm so excited to be here today.

16
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,600
I have a really special guest, Beth Blockwood.

17
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:12,280
Beth, welcome to the show.

18
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:13,280
Yeah.

19
00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:15,080
Thank you so much for having me.

20
00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:20,240
Beth, so I want to call you a librarian, but I'm not sure that's the right technical term.

21
00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:24,960
Could you introduce yourself to our audience, what you do, and what makes you so special?

22
00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:26,360
Yeah, absolutely.

23
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:32,640
So my name is Beth Blockwood, and I am technically the research and education librarian here

24
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:35,720
at Duke Medical Center Library and Archives.

25
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:44,200
So librarian is in my job title, but I specialize in kind of a new area of librarianship that

26
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:49,400
Duke and a few other institutions have kind of invested a lot of time and effort into,

27
00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:50,840
but there's not very many of us yet.

28
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:56,360
And I am specifically a librarian who works on research impact and bibliometrics.

29
00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:02,600
So I specialize in what some might call the science of science, measuring what that kind

30
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:11,120
of meta space is for how we measure what has been studied, what hasn't been studied, who

31
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:16,640
is researching and writing about specific things, and who might not be showing up in

32
00:02:16,640 --> 00:02:18,160
that literature.

33
00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:23,960
A lot of that kind of looks like doing reporting and measuring things for administrators, but

34
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:29,760
a lot of it can also be more novel questions that have to do with who is in what publishing

35
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:36,240
space, what kind of communities are actually reading and accessing the information that

36
00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:38,000
people are publishing.

37
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:44,720
So it's a new kind of nebulous field in librarianship, but ultimately it is about how and who is

38
00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:49,360
accessing information, which I love and I think is true librarianship.

39
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,600
It's just kind of that next meta level of it.

40
00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:53,600
Absolutely.

41
00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:59,040
And one of the things you don't add to your title, Beth, is that you're a life changer.

42
00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:04,160
So for the audience, I first met Beth a couple of, gosh, maybe a few months ago now when

43
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:09,600
I was putting my materials together for a promotion and Beth, I asked Beth, well, someone

44
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:14,500
actually referred to Beth and said, you just talked to Beth about how to measure your impact.

45
00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:18,920
And so I sat down with Beth and Beth really transformed my experience because after talking

46
00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:23,720
to Beth, I was like, oh, now I know what to write about and how to really represent my

47
00:03:23,720 --> 00:03:26,720
impact in a way that was just beyond just the H index.

48
00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:31,720
So that's what I want to talk about today because Beth, we're all trying to make an

49
00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:37,000
impact in our field and we would be making an impact anyway, but then all of a sudden

50
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,440
we live in the background of people saying, well, let's measure your impact.

51
00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:42,560
What's your H index?

52
00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:46,480
And beyond the H index, many of us don't know how else to measure our impact.

53
00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:48,560
So I'd like to just start there.

54
00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:50,360
Tell me about the H index.

55
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:54,080
Why it's so, I guess, powerful and important.

56
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,840
What are the limitations and how else can we think about measuring impact?

57
00:03:57,840 --> 00:03:58,940
Absolutely.

58
00:03:58,940 --> 00:04:03,440
And this is one of my favorite topics to talk about because it is nuanced.

59
00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:09,340
The H index, journal impact factor, a lot of these metrics that we hear tossed around

60
00:04:09,340 --> 00:04:17,000
all the time are very specific measurements that measure extremely small aspects of a

61
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:22,000
particular scholar, of a particular journal, and of the readership of a particular scholar

62
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:23,000
or journal.

63
00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:28,800
For example, H index is a measure really of productivity, theoretically, productivity

64
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:35,960
in terms of what we are told is productive by truly publishers and corporate America

65
00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:41,880
and the folks who are making a lot of money off of publications of materials.

66
00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:44,040
And they're usually making that money off of libraries.

67
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:46,160
So I will put that plug in there.

68
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:51,120
They're not our favorite folks in the library world.

69
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:59,000
But an H index is supposed to measure a scholar's amount of publications by how many citations

70
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:00,080
they get.

71
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:07,040
So that formula more or less is the number of publications that they have and the highest

72
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,280
cited paper that they've published.

73
00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:16,160
So if a person has 46 papers that they've published and their highest cited paper has

74
00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:22,360
been cited 13 times and they have 13 papers that have been cited 13 times, then their

75
00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:24,080
H index is 13.

76
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:30,320
Even though they've published 36, 46, however many papers, unlimited number of papers, it's

77
00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:35,280
a way to show that they are both impactful, people are reading them, and they're also

78
00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:36,280
productive.

79
00:05:36,280 --> 00:05:41,520
But if I just gave you that number, you wouldn't know anything about that person.

80
00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:45,420
You wouldn't know whether they study a rare disease.

81
00:05:45,420 --> 00:05:46,420
Because guess what?

82
00:05:46,420 --> 00:05:51,640
People who study rare diseases do not get cited as often as people who study very, very

83
00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:56,800
popular or very well studied or very highly prominent diseases, things that lots of people

84
00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,600
have, lots of people talk about, and lots of people fund.

85
00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:07,680
So that already creates a very interesting problem for researchers who are helping and

86
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:12,580
studying and working with communities that might not be as popularly funded or might

87
00:06:12,580 --> 00:06:14,940
not have a lot of people reading about it.

88
00:06:14,940 --> 00:06:19,720
So those are the types of things that an H index does not take into effect.

89
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:24,280
It also doesn't tell you anything about where a researcher is in their career.

90
00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:29,000
If you have a new researcher, someone who's new to the field, someone who may be very,

91
00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:34,520
very prominent in their particular fellowship, someone who's going to be a star, whatever

92
00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:38,380
you want to say, they probably don't have a high H index because they have not been

93
00:06:38,380 --> 00:06:47,160
on the planet long enough to have accumulated tons and tons of citations and funding and

94
00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:51,800
things that really help increase those normal traditional metrics.

95
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:54,920
So it's really important to look at the whole scholar.

96
00:06:54,920 --> 00:07:01,080
An H index means very little if someone is working in something outside of the traditional

97
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:09,840
norm or working really hard to make sure that the people and the populations that they study

98
00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:12,560
can actually access that information.

99
00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:16,760
So those are some things I can get into if we talk about journal impact factor, but I

100
00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:23,040
often see the folks who have dedicated their lives to truly helping communities, truly

101
00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:29,680
helping the folks that their research, the actual populations that they study and their

102
00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:33,880
research is a part of often don't have the highest H indexes, but are making the biggest

103
00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:35,820
impact within those communities.

104
00:07:35,820 --> 00:07:39,160
And there are other ways to communicate that kind of information.

105
00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:41,280
Thank you, Beth.

106
00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:46,720
So I love how you talk about just the disparities really that exist in how people's work is

107
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,040
showcased or how it's cited.

108
00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,120
And yeah, so I was thinking as you were talking, I was like, maybe if I'm a cardiologist studying

109
00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:58,040
coronary artery disease, surely you'll probably get a lot more citations as opposed to those

110
00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:01,680
of us who are in the rare disease space where, to be honest, not that many people are interested

111
00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:03,020
in reading our work.

112
00:08:03,020 --> 00:08:08,200
But then, okay, so if not the H index, what are other metrics to demonstrate our impact?

113
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:14,640
Yeah, honestly, traditional metrics are never going to be my favorite way to present anything.

114
00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:22,000
But I think if you are in a space where traditional metrics are required, which a lot of us are,

115
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:27,200
if you receive NIH funding, if you're trying to receive federal funding in any way, if

116
00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:33,680
you are in a very traditional tenure APT kind of process, sometimes you do have to include

117
00:08:33,680 --> 00:08:34,920
those metrics.

118
00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:38,800
But the important thing to do is include the narrative around it.

119
00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:44,480
Keep your narrative to reflect why you have a low or H index.

120
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:50,040
And you can specifically point to the fact that, hey, the journals that I publish in

121
00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:51,720
are open access.

122
00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:58,600
They might not necessarily be in a mainline database like Scopus or Web of Science where

123
00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:01,560
people will find and cite those papers.

124
00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:05,440
And the reason that they may not be found there, and the reason that I try not to publish

125
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:11,080
there would be because people have to pay to subscribe to those places.

126
00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:16,280
And if the research that I am working on is maybe for people who live in rural communities,

127
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:20,720
the hospitals in those rural communities are not going to have access to those publications

128
00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:27,800
unless they are open access on PubMed Central or whatever other means that you have to provide.

129
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:32,560
That's part of a narrative that you could say, hey, it's intentional that I did this.

130
00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:37,880
The important thing to note is that these are factors that folks actually look and care

131
00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:38,880
about.

132
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:44,640
And I think that's kind of the secret that a lot of administrators don't necessarily

133
00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:51,760
want you to know because they want to see high numbers, numbers in these top journal

134
00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:59,200
impact journals, these top H indexes, these top kind of performing metrics that a lot

135
00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:01,920
of folks translate.

136
00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:06,120
These metrics that can translate across a lot of different communities, a lot of different

137
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:08,040
academic spheres.

138
00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:13,040
But they know these things as well, and they work, and they will get you to where you need

139
00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:14,040
to go.

140
00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:17,440
It's just making sure that the researchers are able to communicate that.

141
00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:22,320
And I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we face in scholarly communication and

142
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:28,080
scientific communication is recognizing all the ways that our information is disseminated

143
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:30,680
in a way that actually does help the population.

144
00:10:30,680 --> 00:10:33,120
Because ultimately, why are we here?

145
00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:36,240
Except to help the populations that we're there for.

146
00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:37,240
I love it, Beth.

147
00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:38,240
Thank you so much.

148
00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:39,240
You bring hope.

149
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:40,240
I try.

150
00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:41,240
Okay.

151
00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:47,540
So one of the things that I hear you talking about is owning your narrative.

152
00:10:47,540 --> 00:10:50,400
And so it's like, what story, actually, it's funny.

153
00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:52,720
You said, this is what I intentionally did.

154
00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:54,360
Some of us didn't intentionally do anything.

155
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:57,420
We just ended up here and we're like, oh, now I have to tell the story.

156
00:10:57,420 --> 00:11:02,320
But it's how do you shape the narrative in a way that highlights your work in its best

157
00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:03,320
light?

158
00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:07,640
And if you have an age index, that's great, but it's not...

159
00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:11,120
You can't just rely on that and say, well, I have a high age index, therefore my work

160
00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:12,240
speaks for itself.

161
00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:14,800
But how do you even shape the narrative around that high age index?

162
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:18,860
And if you don't have a high age index, how do you shape the narrative around what you

163
00:11:18,860 --> 00:11:20,080
do not have?

164
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:24,240
But not with a focus on what you don't have, but with a focus on the impact of your work

165
00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:26,800
and the communities that it reaches out to.

166
00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:31,880
And so one of the things I want to speak to, so when I sat down with you, you talked about

167
00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:34,880
my collaborations with international collaborators.

168
00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:40,440
You talked about some of my work being cited in the top 25% of journals by site score.

169
00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:41,840
That was all news to me.

170
00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:47,160
Can you talk to me about how we can find some of these non-traditional metrics in a way

171
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:49,760
that helps us spin the narrative about our work?

172
00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:50,760
Absolutely.

173
00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,640
And my favorite metric, if we were going to talk about a concrete metric, my favorite

174
00:11:54,640 --> 00:12:00,120
one and the one that I encourage authors to utilize as much as possible is the journal

175
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:06,360
quartile, which is really where your journal that you published in falls within a normalized

176
00:12:06,360 --> 00:12:08,760
category that you publish in.

177
00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:14,640
So if you publish in rare diseases, your journal that you publish in is going to be grouped

178
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:18,280
in a category with other rare diseases that it is similar to.

179
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:22,200
So it is what we call a field normalized category.

180
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:29,200
And that can often really show you where you are truly in a way that will communicate better

181
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,000
to the folks who need to hear it.

182
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:36,000
So this is talking specifically about journal impact factor now.

183
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:42,960
So this is a metric that a lot of people don't love because we're comparing apples and oranges

184
00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:44,200
a lot of times with this.

185
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:48,200
When we're looking at an impact factor of a journal, it's comparing review articles

186
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:51,160
with RCTs, with editorials.

187
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:55,240
These are all things that are citable material within a journal, but we're kind of comparing

188
00:12:55,240 --> 00:13:00,840
them all, which as a person interested in data, I think that is a questionable way to

189
00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:03,920
go about things, but it is where we are.

190
00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:10,560
But the quartile is the way that a lot of journals try and solve for this issue by comparing

191
00:13:10,560 --> 00:13:12,280
things, apples and apples.

192
00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:18,560
So like we mentioned earlier, you would never compare a cardiologist's publishing history

193
00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:21,400
to someone who studies rural health.

194
00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:24,400
And just specifically though, there may be overlap there.

195
00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:29,360
Like a community health journal would not be in the same category as someone who studies

196
00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:34,720
like thoracic surgery or anything like that, because the populations who are reading those

197
00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:36,840
journals are very different.

198
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:40,300
Their publication, the people who cite them are very different.

199
00:13:40,300 --> 00:13:46,280
So what I would recommend for someone who looks and sees, oh, I don't publish in high

200
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:53,360
impact journals and I don't publish enough to have a high H index in the same like traditional

201
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:54,360
way.

202
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:59,200
I would really recommend that person look at their publishing history and look for patterns.

203
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:03,320
Am I publishing in journals that reach a certain population?

204
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,240
Am I publishing in open access journals?

205
00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:10,520
Am I publishing in journals that are around a particular theme?

206
00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:11,520
What is that theme?

207
00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:18,600
And how can I communicate that theme to my reviewers, to anyone who is trying to judge

208
00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:22,080
me by these metrics or whatever it is.

209
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,100
And there are arguments that you can make about those journals.

210
00:14:25,100 --> 00:14:31,160
One of the best things that I like to show for this is if you're publishing about a marginalized

211
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:39,020
population and you don't have high citations on your articles, it's probably because the

212
00:14:39,020 --> 00:14:45,460
journals that are citing you are not necessarily indexed in a database like Scopus or a database

213
00:14:45,460 --> 00:14:47,440
like Web of Science.

214
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:49,920
And the free databases do not show you your citation.

215
00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:51,080
There's a reason for that.

216
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:54,760
So if you look at PubMed, PubMed is what we utilize for everything.

217
00:14:54,760 --> 00:14:59,880
PubMed is how we find the majority of information and it's how the world finds the majority

218
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:00,880
of information.

219
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:10,000
It's a huge, huge, openly accessible database, which is why ChatGPT trains the majority of

220
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:16,840
their algorithm, of their large language model off of PubMed because it's freely available.

221
00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:22,680
And a big point to make from that is it doesn't have citations because it doesn't know who

222
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:23,680
cites anyone.

223
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:24,680
It doesn't track that.

224
00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:25,680
It doesn't index.

225
00:15:25,680 --> 00:15:26,680
It doesn't read.

226
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:30,060
It doesn't care about those types of things for a reason.

227
00:15:30,060 --> 00:15:32,800
It's impossible to track all of those things.

228
00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:39,440
So it's important to look back and say, okay, if I am publishing in a rural health journal,

229
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,440
who is citing me?

230
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:46,660
Probably not someone who's indexing and getting a big name journal to publish in one of these

231
00:15:46,660 --> 00:15:48,360
major databases.

232
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:49,360
So who are they?

233
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:50,360
Go find them.

234
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,760
You can use Google Scholar for that type of metric.

235
00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:56,240
You can also provide presentations.

236
00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:59,920
You can provide your additional outside kind of content.

237
00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:03,280
Your presentations that you give at the rural hospital.

238
00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:09,280
The conference proceedings that you give or teaching the teaching that you do to train

239
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:11,240
doctors in these rural places.

240
00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:15,640
Whatever the example is, there are narratives that you can pull in to say like, yeah, I'm

241
00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:20,160
not getting citations because the folks who read my papers don't publish.

242
00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:21,640
They're doctors.

243
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:25,540
Those are some of the ways that I think are really interesting to start to provide a more

244
00:16:25,540 --> 00:16:27,900
nuanced picture of yourself.

245
00:16:27,900 --> 00:16:28,900
Another great example.

246
00:16:28,900 --> 00:16:30,760
I love this group.

247
00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:34,440
I can't talk about, I'm not going to name what group they are.

248
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:35,440
They ever listen to this podcast.

249
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:36,440
We'll know who they are.

250
00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:41,880
So y'all are my favorite, but I have a rogue group of physicians who are very against using

251
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:44,860
any type of metrics to describe their work.

252
00:16:44,860 --> 00:16:49,600
And some of the ways that they've been really interested to show true impact is to find

253
00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:55,080
their citations in up to date and actually go and see, okay, am I actually being used?

254
00:16:55,080 --> 00:17:00,200
Are the publications that I write actually making it to physicians who are treating patients?

255
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:02,440
Cause that's where you would look.

256
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:07,440
I did almost, well, I did, it's not an almost, I did violate my terms and conditions on my

257
00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:12,320
up to date license to try and scrape it and find those, find those citations, but that's

258
00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:13,320
for a different story.

259
00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:14,840
I still work here, so it's fine.

260
00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:18,280
No one was fired in the making of that story.

261
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:25,240
Another way that this group is working to find ways to show other impact outside of

262
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:30,640
citations outside of H index, outside of journal impact factor is to see their citations and

263
00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:36,840
consensus papers and actually go and see are people working with the research that I do?

264
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:40,120
Is the research that I do impacting the field?

265
00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:45,280
And those are some measures that to me, if I saw that cited, if I saw that communicated

266
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:51,120
in a narrative, it would mean more to me than just a random publication in a random journal

267
00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:54,920
that may or may not have been deeply well done.

268
00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:58,360
It speaks nothing to the quality of a paper.

269
00:17:58,360 --> 00:18:03,160
If it's included in a journal, it speaks a lot to the quality of the paper.

270
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:08,600
If it's included in a consensus paper or something along those lines.

271
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:09,600
Thank you, Beth.

272
00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:14,580
And I remember one of the things we did was look at some of my articles and look to see

273
00:18:14,580 --> 00:18:21,800
how many of these guidelines papers had actually cited my papers, which then allowed me to

274
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:27,240
make the narrative of, you know, or to create a narrative of, well, my work is foundational

275
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:30,720
such that these guidelines are citing my work.

276
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,840
I mean, it's foundational.

277
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,720
That's what I want to hear every time with the folks that I work with.

278
00:18:35,720 --> 00:18:37,440
And that's how you prove it.

279
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:38,960
I mean, and it's beautiful.

280
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,480
It's really, really great to think outside of that box.

281
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,040
Now, there's one thing you mentioned that I want to go back and kind of try to address,

282
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:49,360
because when you look at your work, saying Google scholar, you find a certain age index

283
00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:53,640
or certain number of citations as opposed to when you go to a place like Scopus.

284
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:58,080
And then actually looking at my work, I have fewer citations than Scopus compared to Google

285
00:18:58,080 --> 00:18:59,080
scholar.

286
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:01,280
What's the difference between the two?

287
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:02,280
Great question.

288
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:09,680
So Google scholar, Google versus Elsevier, it's big evil company versus big evil company.

289
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:16,640
It's, you know, elitist, one elitist institution, you know, like counting citations and other

290
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:22,320
elitist things versus a what I would refer to as a very opaque system.

291
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:28,800
So in something like Scopus or Web of Science, we know exactly what is being counted.

292
00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:34,200
They have specific journals that they will actively tell you these are what we've indexed.

293
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:38,760
So if you're cited in anywhere in these journals that we look at, we're going to count it and

294
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,360
it'll count toward our numbers.

295
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:44,400
Google scholar opaque.

296
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:45,840
We don't know what it's counting.

297
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:50,240
We know that it's probably counting the same things and then some.

298
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:56,100
One of the biggest kind of inflators of Google scholar numbers, Google scholar numbers tend

299
00:19:56,100 --> 00:19:58,560
to be higher, which is why people love them.

300
00:19:58,560 --> 00:19:59,880
I don't I don't blame them.

301
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:02,160
We want to make it look as high as possible.

302
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:07,600
But it does tend to be more inflated than other locations because it often will double

303
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:14,120
count your open access papers and it will often count an index of something that's in

304
00:20:14,120 --> 00:20:17,800
PubMed Central with an index of something that's in Scopus.

305
00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:22,960
So sometimes you'll get, you know, four or five points higher if it says that you have

306
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:23,960
higher papers.

307
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:27,920
So if it said if it counts that you have, you know, that same paper that's living in

308
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:33,000
two locations, that same paper that's living in research gate, that's also in PubMed Central,

309
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:37,800
that's also on the journals website that will sometimes inflate your numbers a little bit,

310
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:42,760
which is often why people put their papers in these locations because they know that

311
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:47,080
and that's the other kind of area that I like to discuss with Google is that folks who have

312
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:49,960
the time to game it can't.

313
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:54,800
That's the big thing to know is that folks who have the time to spend, you know, a lot

314
00:20:54,800 --> 00:21:00,400
of effort making sure that their papers link out to specific places, making sure that their

315
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:05,480
citations are perhaps double counting, they succeed in that environment.

316
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:09,080
It's a little more gameable than something like Scopus or Web of Science.

317
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:15,840
So those are the kind of how you weigh that situation of one evil company versus another

318
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:22,160
evil company versus one that is a little bit more elitist and kind of locked down of who

319
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:27,960
can count what, what counts and what doesn't versus one that is gameable by folks who have

320
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:33,120
the capacity, the time, the energy to do something and the knowledge, truly the knowledge to

321
00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:35,080
do that kind of work.

322
00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:36,400
Wow.

323
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,560
This is how you know you're talking to the expert when she can tell you how to game the

324
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:44,460
system and I hope, you know, but I, you know, it's interesting.

325
00:21:44,460 --> 00:21:45,460
People do it, right?

326
00:21:45,460 --> 00:21:49,280
So it's kind of like, I don't know that it's an open secret, but it's, it's, people do

327
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,920
it and if you want to look up how to do it, you can, but I think that the real issue is

328
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,680
how do you, how do you present your work in a way that honors the work you've done, honors

329
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:03,200
the communities you served without trying to play a game because at the end of the day,

330
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:04,840
it's not, it's not worth it.

331
00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:05,840
At least I think so.

332
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:06,840
Totally agree.

333
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:07,840
Totally agree.

334
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:11,200
It's a capitalist system, so it's always going to be a game.

335
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:15,560
It just depends on, you know, how much time, energy and funding do you have to play that

336
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:16,560
game?

337
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:17,560
Sure.

338
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:18,560
Sure.

339
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:19,560
No really good points, really good points.

340
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:20,560
Okay.

341
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:25,720
So we've been talking about from the perspective of the investigator demonstrating their impact.

342
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:30,160
One of the things you also do is you help institutions understand the impact of their

343
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:31,560
investigators.

344
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:32,960
Tell me a little bit about that.

345
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:33,960
Yeah.

346
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:41,200
So my August through October is absolutely slammed with end of fiscal year reports providing

347
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:47,440
large data sets of publication data that I'll either add information to, to make a whole

348
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:52,640
piece, a whole presentable data set about a particular department.

349
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:59,120
So I will again, not say any department names or Institute names, but usually it's a particular

350
00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:04,000
division, a particular department or an Institute at our, at Duke, where they would request

351
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:11,600
in, you know, July, August, we're going to have X meeting or do X report in October and

352
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:16,800
we'll need to know every publication that our department has done in the last year,

353
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:22,680
how it's been cited and what journal, what journal and what impact the journal was.

354
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:29,840
So, and I would say that, you know, I wish that the whole journal impact kind of that,

355
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:36,520
that factor of it was starting to like lose its, its sting and lose its popularity, but

356
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:37,520
it really hasn't.

357
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:44,160
I would say that almost every, every department that I work with does act, ask for me to add

358
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,060
impact factor into the data sets that I provide.

359
00:23:47,060 --> 00:23:51,920
So every year, every single year they get a lecture from me where I tell them, recognize

360
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:57,600
that if you are, if you have any researchers who are working in rare disease spaces, this

361
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,440
is not going to be an accurate metric for them.

362
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:06,360
Also recognize that if you have any new journals or folks who are publishing in novel fields

363
00:24:06,360 --> 00:24:12,520
or doing novel research, this is not going to be an, an accurate rating or an accurate

364
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,040
measurement for them.

365
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,960
And so whether they ask for it or not, I always include the core tile, which will tell them

366
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,900
where they fall within that, their specific field.

367
00:24:22,900 --> 00:24:29,080
And I personally try to provide data visualizations or ways that I can communicate what a core

368
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:33,200
tile is about their department kind of automatically.

369
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,640
Most of them don't ask for that, but I provide it anyway.

370
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:41,600
And it does tend to make its way into their reports, does tend to make it into their kind

371
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,120
of like larger meetings where they're presenting and they're like, Oh, we have a visualization

372
00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:46,120
that's already made.

373
00:24:46,120 --> 00:24:47,920
Thank you, librarian for doing that.

374
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:52,880
And that's how I kind of sneak in the value of more normalized fields.

375
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:59,240
Granted, I do have some departments that will actually normalize for fields.

376
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,040
So I have folks who, if you're familiar with the population health department at Duke,

377
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:04,040
it's fairly new.

378
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:11,260
It's a fairly young department and a lot of the journals that they work in are very interdisciplinary.

379
00:25:11,260 --> 00:25:16,040
So those tend to have much lower journal impact factors because they're newer.

380
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:17,800
They're not, they haven't been as round as long.

381
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,000
They haven't built up the following.

382
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:24,920
And honestly, libraries haven't purchased as many of their subscriptions just because

383
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:29,200
they're so new and people don't request them quite as much as guess what?

384
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,640
Community health doesn't have as much money as others.

385
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:32,640
Shock.

386
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:34,240
We're all surprised by that.

387
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,760
So I've worked with a couple of departments that now are institutes here that have interdisciplinary

388
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:45,000
groups to actually lower what they consider a high impact journal for particular fields,

389
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:54,080
which does go a long way to making that impact actually more normalized where we have journals

390
00:25:54,080 --> 00:26:00,640
like science, nature that have impact factors in the nineties, over a hundred points, things

391
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:01,800
like that.

392
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,240
And then we have folks in population health.

393
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:11,360
That'll be the top Q1 journal in all of population health that has a one or a two.

394
00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:13,800
And that's the highest, that's the highest journal.

395
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,800
So I apologize.

396
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:20,720
All right.

397
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:21,720
Thank you so much.

398
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,300
Gosh, you know, Beth, I almost feel as if so.

399
00:26:24,300 --> 00:26:28,600
So from what you're telling me, you're like the, the, the undercover crusader working

400
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:34,200
so hard to, to make sure that people are valuing the work of investigators well, whether that

401
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:38,040
is investigators valuing their own work, but also departments valuing the work of their

402
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:39,760
investigators, their faculty.

403
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,240
So thank you for the work that you do.

404
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,480
I'm curious about the visualization.

405
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:50,320
How can faculty for themselves create their own visual representation of the kind of work

406
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,240
that they've done and their impact?

407
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:53,240
Absolutely.

408
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,880
First, I'll shout out our library resources, both here at the medical center library and

409
00:26:57,880 --> 00:26:59,480
at our main campus library.

410
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,920
And if you're a researcher listening anywhere that has access to a medical or university

411
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:09,440
library, I guarantee that they have workshops that they're teaching to show researchers,

412
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:15,720
faculty, including sending your, your researchers, your postdocs there to go learn it for you,

413
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:20,560
how to use a variety of different tools that are available to actually communicate that

414
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:21,560
data.

415
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,000
Of course, some of the easiest tools that you have, I'm sure anyone would have access

416
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,040
to it in Google sheets.

417
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:32,980
In Excel, you can make a graph, you can make a table, but the benefit of actually providing

418
00:27:32,980 --> 00:27:40,440
an image for someone who's trying to communicate a point is it's easy.

419
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:41,440
It's easy.

420
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,440
Someone can read it.

421
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,720
Someone doesn't have to spend a lot of time interpreting it.

422
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:51,000
They can look quickly at a bar chart and say, all right, Q4, that's the lowest, Q1, that's

423
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,440
the highest, Q1 is gray, Q1, Q4 is this.

424
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:59,160
And I can see that we have a lot of Q1 journals that just might not have super high impact

425
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:00,640
factors.

426
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:06,720
It's so easy to, for me to make those in like 30 seconds over data that someone from a particular

427
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:10,800
department has provided that will end up somewhere.

428
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:15,600
It's just taking a little time, you know, a minute and a half of my time that will take

429
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,280
a minute and a half off of that poor administrator or that poor coordinator who's making those

430
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:24,600
slides who's already slammed and be like, it'll sneak in there.

431
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:30,600
But for a researcher, we all know the value of data visualization in the way that we publish

432
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:36,840
and how we communicate things, how, you know, color can make someone feel a certain way

433
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:43,240
or a bar or a pie chart can be sometimes pretty racist if we use it badly.

434
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:48,080
There are all kinds of ways that we can learn how to use data visualizations in an ethical

435
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,640
way and to share our own narrative.

436
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:56,840
One example of this might be if you're demonstrating your own research is making a simple bar chart

437
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,480
of how you publish and what journals you publish in.

438
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:00,760
How many are open access?

439
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:06,120
If you have a pie chart of everything that you've published and 90% of that is open access,

440
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:07,880
that communicates a lot.

441
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:12,160
Just to say like, oh, pretty much everything I do is openly accessible to all of the folks

442
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:13,660
that I work with.

443
00:29:13,660 --> 00:29:17,440
Or you want to say that all of everything that I publish is a Q1 journal.

444
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,240
It's just not a high impact factor.

445
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:25,280
Those are really easy ways to show something that someone will look at lightly and immediately

446
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:30,720
understand without having to read deeply through, oh, I published here and here and here and

447
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,480
here and this is what this is and this is and this is.

448
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,600
It's a quick, you immediately know.

449
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:40,800
And we all know that people who are reviewing us, whether they're, you know, program officers

450
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,760
at the NIH or they're administrative, like faculty that, you know, are administrators

451
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:50,080
and faculty members that are granting us tenure, they're the folks who have the least amount

452
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,480
of time to look at these things and delve deeply into them.

453
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:55,480
So let's make it easy on them.

454
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:56,840
Oh, it's really good.

455
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:57,840
It's really good.

456
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,400
Let's just take a little bit of effort and make something that makes it easy for someone

457
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:02,760
to understand your impact.

458
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:04,000
I love it.

459
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:05,000
Okay.

460
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:12,640
If you could speculate on the perfect score, how to create the perfect score, or maybe

461
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:18,200
not so much score as metric or maybe it's not a score.

462
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,160
What would you recommend?

463
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,100
Kind of looking at the whole landscape.

464
00:30:22,100 --> 00:30:23,900
How would you recommend we do this?

465
00:30:23,900 --> 00:30:28,280
Because the whole purpose, right, is to compare one investigator to another.

466
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:32,720
But what we're really doing as you, as you highlighted, is comparing apples to oranges

467
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,960
and then feeling good about ourselves, but not really doing a good job.

468
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:42,640
How should institutions be thinking about evaluating kind of the impact of the work

469
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,200
their investigators are doing?

470
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:45,200
Yeah.

471
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,500
From the institutional level, it's look for that narrative.

472
00:30:48,500 --> 00:30:54,480
Look and see who the person is and look at who the population they work with, who can

473
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:56,240
access their work.

474
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:02,000
It's awesome if, you know, they're published in Nature, but if nobody reading Nature gets

475
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:08,480
anything out of it, if nobody reading Nature actually cares about this particular rare

476
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,520
disease and is going to use it, is it used?

477
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:18,800
So I think the real clutch part for any person who is going up for review, who's trying to

478
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:24,680
make their narrative, who's trying to actually communicate what they're doing is to look

479
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:33,440
at where they're being cited at the population level, whether that is rural hospitals newsletter

480
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:38,160
and just citing that, whether it's on ABC and you're actually getting written up in

481
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:43,400
a news story that's communicated in the morning news, whether it is in somebody's podcast

482
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:47,480
that is actually being listened to, you know, like these are the things where you actually

483
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,960
are communicating that research.

484
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:54,360
Those are some more like altmetrics that we always talk about altmetrics, these additional

485
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:55,360
kind of things.

486
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:59,920
Like it used to be very popular to say that your altmetrics were on Twitter, but now I

487
00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:04,280
have to like look for other things because our library no longer supports Twitter slash

488
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:08,680
formerly known as Twitter X now formerly known as Twitter and whatever that is.

489
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:14,080
There are lots of ways that you can measure how things have been seen outside of these

490
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:20,360
traditional narratives and it doesn't have to be something fancy like a documentary or

491
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:24,400
you know, you were seen on, you got an NPR story about you like awesome.

492
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,440
That would be awesome if you had an NPR story about you.

493
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:31,940
I'm not going to say it's not awesome, but like getting written up in like a local journal

494
00:32:31,940 --> 00:32:37,400
that actually reaches folks who, who need it, I think is the most important.

495
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,240
I have a good colleague.

496
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:43,840
I used to be an environmental science librarian and I have a colleague who studies beavers

497
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:49,760
and fire prevention, which is so random, but you know, she never dedicated her time to

498
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:54,520
actually publishing in these major major journals because she was actually trying to make an

499
00:32:54,520 --> 00:33:00,260
impact on like California policy, which has like all these regulations about where a beaver

500
00:33:00,260 --> 00:33:02,800
can be and not be and it's right.

501
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:08,320
Like anyway, it doesn't matter, but that was where she focused her actual goals and her

502
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:09,320
communication.

503
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:10,620
So she published in local journals.

504
00:33:10,620 --> 00:33:14,640
She published and wrote at major conferences that were just statewide.

505
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:20,300
It didn't matter to her so much about these bigger, like, you know, bigger journals that

506
00:33:20,300 --> 00:33:24,200
might matter to someone who's trying to like climb a ladder, which is all fine.

507
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,120
I'm not saying there's anything wrong climbing the ladder.

508
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:27,120
It's important.

509
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,480
We need good people at the top of the ladder too.

510
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,600
But that was kind of her goal.

511
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:37,880
And so her major representation in her tenure package was speaking on the state floor, the

512
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,560
house floor at like the California, one of the state Senate meetings, because she had

513
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:47,040
worked her way up to being able to provide her testimony and give expert testimony in

514
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:48,040
that level.

515
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:49,580
And she did get tenure off of that.

516
00:33:49,580 --> 00:33:53,400
And she did get a lot of praise and kind of accolade for that.

517
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:58,480
But that's what I'm talking about with a narrative is like, it would be awesome if we all publish

518
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:03,000
in nature, if we all publish in these big journals, we all are in JAMA.

519
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,360
Everybody's so proud of us.

520
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:11,960
But that narrative of I did X, Y, and Z to scaffold to this goal, which forwards my research,

521
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,800
that is a narrative that you would give someone tenure for, in my opinion.

522
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:17,080
I love it.

523
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:18,080
I love it.

524
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:19,680
It's individualizing the process.

525
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:21,340
It's easier.

526
00:34:21,340 --> 00:34:24,920
It's easier for us to just pick a number and not have to do any work.

527
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:27,540
But really it's saying it's doing the work.

528
00:34:27,540 --> 00:34:30,320
It's the investigators doing the work of representing their work well.

529
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:35,480
And this institution is not trying to put everybody in a one size fits all box.

530
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:40,400
And just make it easy for that reader, for the person who's judging you to easily follow

531
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:41,400
that narrative.

532
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,680
Dare I say it might be writing skills, which is scary to have to say, but good writing

533
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:51,120
skills, good communication in that sense, but also just paying attention and looking

534
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,280
for patterns in where you've published.

535
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,800
Even if you are like, I have no idea how I got here.

536
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:57,360
I don't really know who I talked to.

537
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:58,360
But it's a pattern.

538
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,000
There'll be some type of pattern that you can pull.

539
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,860
And it helps to just talk to someone else, bring in another person.

540
00:35:04,860 --> 00:35:09,520
That's what we did is we just like looked at your record, try and see, have someone

541
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,920
else tell you what they see.

542
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:16,040
And be like, oh, that is actually what I do, but I've never said it.

543
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:17,040
You know?

544
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:18,040
Right.

545
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:19,040
Never thought about it that way.

546
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:20,040
Yeah, it's right.

547
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:21,040
It's true.

548
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:24,920
It's so helpful to talk to someone else like you, the expert about how to do that.

549
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:26,840
You touched a little bit on social media.

550
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:31,280
What should people be thinking about in terms of representing their work that's highlighted

551
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:32,280
on social media?

552
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:35,680
Yeah, for me, I would say don't focus on it.

553
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,180
Don't waste a lot of time on social media.

554
00:35:38,180 --> 00:35:43,800
But do have a presence in terms of like a website that if someone Googles you, that's

555
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,880
coming up early enough if that's something that matters to you.

556
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:54,800
But honestly, social media, I find it even now to still be very transitory of what is

557
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:55,800
findable.

558
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,360
And for me as a librarian, it's hard to search.

559
00:35:58,360 --> 00:35:59,720
It's hard for people to find you.

560
00:35:59,720 --> 00:36:03,480
It's hard to find things that are like stable places.

561
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,720
So focus your energy on stable things.

562
00:36:06,720 --> 00:36:11,800
Stable, a stable website that you can then, you know, post in your stories as much as

563
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,640
you want, but it has a stable page that it links to.

564
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:19,320
So that's kind of the strategy that I recommend for folks who want to use social media or

565
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:24,040
want to use a more, you know, ephemeral is typically the word that I would use to describe

566
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:30,080
ephemeral form of media to communicate their research is to focus on a stable backbone,

567
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:35,560
something that you can actually take a screenshot of and find to provide to, you know, as proof

568
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:41,640
of something versus a TikTok video that you lost in your past somewhere, which is fine.

569
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,600
If you become TikTok famous and get tenure off of that, I support it.

570
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,320
So that is a good way to communicate information if it's good information.

571
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:50,960
But that's what you're battling with.

572
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:52,280
No, that's really good.

573
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:53,280
That's really good.

574
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:58,640
And when you create your narrative, that people can find the evidence that supports the narrative

575
00:36:58,640 --> 00:36:59,640
as well.

576
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:00,640
I love it.

577
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:01,640
Okay.

578
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,360
So we are coming to the end of our podcast episode.

579
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,920
We've talked about so many golden nuggets.

580
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:11,760
I wonder, is there anything that's left unsaid that you want to share with our audience?

581
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,480
Really just do your research and keep track of it.

582
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:16,600
Do your research.

583
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:22,560
Don't, don't be swayed by what, you know, the journal wants you to do.

584
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:27,080
Don't be swayed by what your institution says is the most important.

585
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,360
Obviously those, those voices are important, but serve your community.

586
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,280
Serve that, do your research.

587
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,280
And there is a narrative and there is a metric and there is a way to communicate it.

588
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:41,440
You just might need to talk to an additional person to find it, but don't, don't be swayed

589
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,640
by low H index by low journal impact factor.

590
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:49,640
It's just an arbitrary number that a white man made up like 30 years ago.

591
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,120
It does not matter ultimately, and think of it that way.

592
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,760
Like do your research.

593
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:56,760
Thank you, Beth.

594
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,320
It's music to my ears because it's one of the things I talk about where it's like, you

595
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,000
could spend your time worrying about what everybody thinks about you.

596
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:06,680
And you will always still find the people who are not impressed, or you could just focus

597
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:11,360
on work that creates impact, knowing that you are serving communities that care about

598
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:12,960
the work you do.

599
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:18,160
And, and then find a way to tell the story in a way that, that makes sense to you and

600
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:19,720
that people can understand.

601
00:38:19,720 --> 00:38:20,840
So I appreciate that.

602
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:21,840
Thank you.

603
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:22,840
Yeah.

604
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:23,840
Thanks so much for letting me share.

605
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:28,080
Cause I feel like we speak on deaf ears a lot of time when we're talking to admins, but

606
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,360
you know, I'll just keep yelling at them.

607
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:31,360
It's fine.

608
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:32,360
No, no, no, it's great.

609
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:37,080
I think you are part of the revolution and it's an important revolution because what

610
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,080
are we about?

611
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,920
Are we about creating good work that, that changes people's lives?

612
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:46,160
Or are we about just pretending to do that?

613
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:52,640
And wouldn't it be great to be able to change lives and also be able to demonstrate how

614
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:56,760
it's impactful by the numbers, but just because you can't do that, doesn't mean you cannot

615
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,000
create a narrative that shows the work you've done.

616
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:01,000
Exactly.

617
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,160
Well, Beth, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show.

618
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,240
Thank you so much for being here.

619
00:39:06,240 --> 00:39:07,600
Thank you so much for inviting me.

620
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,640
It's always a pleasure to hang out with you.

621
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,240
Well, everyone you've heard Beth, somebody needs to hear this.

622
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:18,160
There's someone you know, who is working right now on their promotion packet and they're

623
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,960
pulling out their hairs because they can't get their H index above the five.

624
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,680
You need to share this episode with them so that their lives can be transformed forever.

625
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:26,680
All right.

626
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:27,680
Thank you for listening.

627
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:39,400
And we look forward to listen to talking with you again on the next episode of the clinician

628
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:40,400
researcher podcast.

629
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:44,600
We're going to be listening to this episode of the clinician researcher podcast where

630
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:50,080
academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not

631
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,040
they have a mentor.

632
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:58,140
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

633
00:39:58,140 --> 00:39:59,880
Someone else needs to hear it.

634
00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:03,920
So take a minute right now and share it.

635
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:09,400
As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

636
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:15,360
of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.