Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) showcase research through creative, practice-based, or applied forms such as performances, exhibitions, creative writing, digital projects, or design.
Unlike traditional outputs, they are not always captured well by citation-based metrics. This guide provides practical advice on how to make NTROs visible, accessible, and assessable for impact. It outlines best practices for planning ahead, assigning DOIs, recording meaningful engagement, and using specialised tools to demonstrate the reach and influence of your work.
For discipline-specific requirements, please refer to your faculty’s NTRO guidelines.
Plan for impact assessment at the beginning of the project. This includes:
| Impact area | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Audience metrics | Visitor numbers for exhibitions, installations, or performances · Attendance at launches, talks, workshops, or screenings · Ticket sales or registrations where relevant |
| Engagement indicators | Qualitative feedback from visitor books, surveys, testimonials, or online comments · Media coverage including reviews, interviews, podcasts, or blogs · Online usage such as downloads, streams, or views of recordings, datasets, or digital works |
| Scholarly recognition | Citations or references in research articles, catalogues, or academic databases · Invitations to present, exhibit, or perform at national or international venues · Inclusion in curated collections or disciplinary repositories · Awards and prizes recognising the work |
| Cultural & community impact | Partnerships with cultural institutions, community organisations, or industry collaborators · Evidence of influence on policy or practice (e.g. adoption in curriculum, professional guidelines, or community programs) · Endorsements, commissions, or repeat invitations from external organisations |
| Altmetrics & online visibility | Mentions in policy documents, news media, and blogs · Attention on social media platforms (X, BlueSky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok) · Citations in Wikipedia or references in the Open Syllabus Project · Platform-specific statistics such as YouTube views, Vimeo streams, SoundCloud plays, or institutional repository downloads |
Collecting and organising this data ensures that, once your NTRO is linked to a DOI, the attention it receives can be systematically tracked in tools such as Altmetric Explorer, PlumX, and Overton (see below). Together, these help you demonstrate the cultural, societal, and scholarly impact of your work.
Tip: Keep a simple log (spreadsheet, project diary, or even a shared Google doc) to record visits, feedback, and mentions as they happen. Retrospectively collecting this information can be very difficult.
One of the best ways to publicise your research is via a digital object identifier (DOI). DOIs can be used to disseminate your research in Facebook posts, blog posts, X feeds, policy inclusions, news outlets, Wikipedia pages and other media.
When you publish your work through Bridges it becomes immediately available, without a login, to anyone who has an internet connection. A DOI is also automatically created.
Bridges allows Monash researchers to make their research (or part of it) publicly available in one of three ways:
For data that cannot (or cannot yet) be made publicly available, create a description of the research without providing access to the data. To do this in Bridges, select 'Set as metadata record'.
Follow these steps to create a public item in Bridges:
Log in to Bridges using your Monash credentials at bridges.monash.edu.
Click '+ Create a new item'.
Choose one of the three options
Add files or folders - to make your data publicly available
Link to external files - when your data is already publicly available
Set as metadata record - when you don't want to provide access to you data but you do want others to know about your research.
Work your way through the form and complete the relevant fields, keeping in mind that the following seven fields are compulsory:
Item title
Group
Item type
Authors
Keywords
Description
Licence
Click 'Publish item' and follow the prompts.
One you have published your item you can view it live at bridges.monash.edu where it will appear on the top line. To find your DOI, click on your now live item, and click on 'Cite'. The DOI can now be used to publicise your research.
You can integrate your Monash Bridges account with your ORCID account to ensure that any research published in Monash Bridges is automatically visible in your ORCID profile, and vice versa. To set up the integration follow these steps:
Log in to Monash Bridges, click on your profile icon on the top right and select 'Integrations'.
Select 'Connect to ORCID'.
You have three options:
Push data to my ORCID (toggle on/off)
Pull data from my ORCID to my account (toggle on/off)
Create draft records from my ORCID data (toggle on/off)
You can disconnect the integration at any time.
Tip: Linking your NTROs to your ORCID and ResearcherID/Scopus profile ensures they are associated with your researcher identity across systems.
Once you have linked your NTRO to a DOI and an appropriate descriptive record in Bridges, you have the foundation for utilising tools like Altmetric Explorer, PlumX (via Scopus) and Overton for capturing and communicating its broader impact.
These platforms draw on a broad range of sources to monitor various forms of attention, engagement, influence and reach. These measures may help demonstrate the societal, cultural, and academic impact of NTROs.
| Sources / source types | What it measures | How to use the tool | Export options |
|
Your NTRO will have Altmetric attention if the source of the attention is tracked by Altmetric Explorer. The exact list of sources can change over time. Some key source types curated by Altmetric include:
|
|
Click "Edit Search" to open the Advanced Search menu.
Enter a DOI prefix or select from the other available ways to refine your search to find your NTROs. |
Look for the "Export this tab" button to export results to CSV. |
| Sources / source types | What it measures | How to use the tool | Export options |
|
You can access PlumX attention for your NTROs that are indexed in Scopus database.
Sources curated by PlumX include
PlumX metrics (has the full source list in the five categories) |
|
Select the "Authors" tab to search by Author name or ORCID. This will take you to your Author Profile where you can see your Documents and Preprints in Scopus.
To view metrics for individual documents, click the document title, and then select the Impact tab (above the abstract). Where PlumX metrics have been captured, they will be listed here. |
When viewing individual documents, the metrics are not included in the exportable fields. |
| Sources / source types | What it measures | How to use the tool | Export options |
|
Overton traces how academic work influences real-world policy. Sources include:
Characteristics of Overton Index's data
Overton: A bibliometric database of policy document citations |
e.g. Citations in policy documents, policy influence of reports, briefs, expert contributions including to guideline development. |
Search for yourself using the “Search People” tab.
Searches can be filtered by sector, organisation type, country/region, year etc. |
Export to CSV, Excel, PPT or RIS. |
Capturing and demonstrating the impact of NTROs requires a combination of early planning, thoughtful documentation, and the use of specialised tools.
By ensuring your work has a DOI, recording meaningful forms of engagement, and monitoring its reach through platforms like Altmetric Explorer, PlumX, and Overton, you can make the full value of your research visible. NTROs enrich scholarship, culture, and society in diverse ways, and effective impact assessment helps ensure this contribution is recognised within and beyond academia.