Using bibliometric data can help you with
- increasing the visibility and impact of your research
- promotion and review
- identifying the most suitable journals for publication
- identifying potential collaborators and areas for research
- providing data for grant proposals. The grant application rules for each funding agency should be consulted to determine which data could be helpful. TUM ForTE, the Office for Research and Innovation, also offers consultations to assist researchers with questions regarding funding.
The use of bibliometric measurements is not a replacement for qualitative methods of evaluation. Care must be taken to use the appropriate metric for the appropriate purpose. For example, impact factors (a journal-level measurement) should not be used to assess individual researchers. Many metrics can also be influenced by the very different citation behaviors that exist in different disciplines or by intentional measures.
For a further discussion of these limitations, see: Hicks, D. et al. (2015): The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature 520 (7548), 429-431, http://www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-the-leiden-manifesto-for-research-metrics-1.17351 and The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: http://www.ascb.org/dora/.
