Overall View
Our system is a web-based application that will be accessible to our sponsor, as well as other users depending on the scalability of the project to other universities. The expectation is for all end users to have the same privileges on the system in terms of handling data and performing calculations. These privileges include being able to manipulate current data in the database of professor publications, query the same data for specific citation information, and allow the system to visualize data and better identify professor research impact. The system will allow a user to query for data on popular publication websites such as Google Scholar.
Current metrics to analyze the research performance of a faculty member provide value (things such as number of papers published or number of grants received), but do little to assist in helping someone to understand the impact of a professor’s research. With this being said, it is important to gather other information specifically about the papers a faculty member has published, and this information can be better used to project the “trajectory” of impact that a professor’s research has. Using citation information, most notably the number of times that a paper is cited, allows for a user to better analyze the reach of specific papers from a faculty member and therefore better understand their impact. Users of the system will be able to query for a faculty member’s paper and then the system will present such information, as well as statistics using this information to better showcase an individual’s “trajectory”.
