Building Blocks for Impact

Capturing scholarly “impact” often relies on familiar suspects like h-index, JIF, and citations, despite evidence that these indicators are narrow, often misleading, and generally insufficient to capture the full richness of scholarly work. Considering a wider breadth of contributions in assessing the value of academic activities may require a new mental model. Building Blocks for Impact is a one-pager that outlines and illustrates the wide variety of academic achievements and outcomes that could be considered impactful. This tool models impact on two dimensions: scale of contributions’ influence and new types of audiences. This model outlines a range of scholarly work, including open science practices, institutional policy contributions (e.g., diversity, equity, and inclusion), real-world societal contributions, and industry collaborations.