by Mike MacKinnon, Director of Sales, Africa, Asia, Australia, Plum Analytics

Recently I was able to attend the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Annual Accreditation Conference in Singapore. The conference was attended by nearly 200 people from all over Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

In the opening plenary there were some great takeaways from Edmund Lin of Bain Capital; namely that digital growth globally is staggering and will expand by multiples in the years to come:

• 4B internet users in 2015, expecting that to double to 7.6B by 2020
• 80% of data was created in the last 18 months, expecting that to be 10X by 2020
• $1.6T in eCommerce in 2015, up to $3.5T by 2020

Further, this growth is largely going to come from emerging markets and the emerging middle class within those markets (principally India, China, SE Asia, Brazil).

• These markets are skipping the “fixed broadband infrastructure” and going straight to mobile
• Fueled by both the rising middle class and the younger generation who are ‘coming of age – born in the digital era

These figures above make me curious about the future of publishing, the future of “publish or perish” paradigms, and the future of measuring “impact” for research. How much longer will today’s models hold for the coming waves of digital engagement from digitally native researchers?

Another great session I attended was created by Saint Mary’s College of California, School of Economics & Business Administration:

• Dr. Zhan Li, Dean School of Economics and Business Administration
• Dr. Larisa Genin, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programs and Accreditation
  School of Economics and Business Administration
• Sarah Vital, Reference and Instruction Librarian

Like many institutions they have annual reporting and accreditation needs from their faculty’s research outputs. However, for a liberal arts college this has never been a simple task. Dr. Larisa Genin wanted to build a tool to support and measure their faculty research – a panoramic dashboard. She formed a partnership with Sarah Vital from the St. Mary’s Library to help with this task.

Taking the latest tools, Genin and Vital built a tool using a compilation of metrics into a custom rubric. These metrics include standard journal metrics (WorldCat holdings, Cabell’s International acceptance rate, and Journal Citation Reports (JIF)), newer journal metrics like SCIamgo Journal Rank (SJR) and SNIP, and altmetrics data from Plum Analytics. For me, this is precisely what we’ve been striving for at Plum Analytics – a tool to compliment others already in use by research institutions. Plum is designed to shed light where there is none currently.

I was thankful to Genin and Vital for sharing their experience and what they’ve done. They’ve created a simplified system for research impact tracking that works for their institution; standardized formats, streamlined process, and a go-to document for accreditation assessments and professional development.