Tracking Scholarship in the Arts & Humanities

Showing the impact of creative works isn't as straightforward as counting citations or using a citation-based metric to measure the impact of a journal article or monograph. However, this doesn't mean that showing the impact of creative works is impossible. Scholars that produce a combination of scholarly and creative works can use a broad range of methods to demonstrate both types of works' overall impact, originality, significance, and influence.

This page of the guide can help you use a combination of methods that work best for your creative work. Not all works can use the same methods, so it's best to check in with colleagues to see what methods they use and then think about which methods will best suit the type of work you produce.

For scholarly works that produce citations and other methods, please check out this guide's Citations & Metrics for the Arts & Humanities page.

Impact in the Visual & Performing Arts

Telling the broader picture of your creative work is what's most important when looking to demonstrate the impact of your work. You can use a combination of methods, including quantitative and qualitative, but providing the context surrounding why your work is essential, significant, or contributes something of value to your field will be the most helpful.

• Audience/Attendance: If your work is displayed in an exhibition, at an event, at a gallery, etc., then ask the venue or a coordinator to provide audience counts or attendee numbers. Use these numbers to show a broad interest in your work, especially if any demographic information is available (such as age ranges, etc.).

• Social Media: If you, someone else, or an organization shared your work on social media platforms, then you can use engagement data to show the reach and interactions of the public with your work. Social media sites often have analytical data you can access just for this purpose.

• Venue: If a prestigious venue accepts your work to be displayed at an exhibition or other event, then this information itself can show the impact and significance of your work, as well as an indicator of your prominence in the field.

• Sales: If the work that you produce can be sold, such as by producing prints of an original art piece, then sales figures can provide a measurement of impact. Ticket sales to exhibitions or events can also be used as a measure of impact.

• Reviews: Professional and critic reviews of art pieces can be used as another method of showing that other experts in your particular area of specialty acknowledge and praise your work. This type of qualitative information can be used to help tell the story of how your visual art affects other professionals in the field, the field itself, or even the general public.

• Surveys and/or interviews: Utilizing this form of feedback is another qualitative indicator that can help demonstrate why your work is significant.

Use metrics and more to write an impactful narrative about your research

Metrics and other indicators are just one piece of demonstrating the impact of your scholarly or creative work. Impact narratives are written explanations that highlight your progress towards and achievement of "impact" - whether that is within academia, your field of expertise, or even the general public. They help to tell a compelling story that showcases the positive change and results produced by your research, often backed up by various types of data and evidence.

How to write a successful impact narrative

Writing a successful narrative can help articulate why others should care about your work, reach new audiences, and overall increase your reputation as an expert in your field (and perhaps beyond!). To create a successful narrative you'll need to focus on the relevance of your work to a specific project, organization, or set of goals. Provide context and explain why your scholarly or creative activity is significant, using qualitative and/or quantitative evidence to back up your claims. Go beyond just numbers and consider why your work matters to your target audience.

Check out the UWA Research Impact Toolkit for some excellent case studies.

Use a narrative CV when applying for funding and more

A narrative CV provides a structured written description of a researcher’s contributions and achievements that reflects a broad range of relevant skills, experiences, and competencies. Your narrative CV should focus on your role as a researcher on a project, who benefitted from the project, how they benefitted from the project, and when that benefit occurred. You can use evidence and data to support your narrative where possible. Additionally, depending on the target audience for your narrative CV (such as a funding agency), make sure that your narrative is grounded in the values of the organization.

Portions of the Researcher Impact Framework by Giovanna Lima and Sarah Bowman were used for this section.