Elizabeth Marsh, a PhD student in the School of Psychology, has reached a landmark of 100 Google Scholar citations for a research paper she co-authored exploring the dark side of the digital workplace. 

The study, co-authored with Elvira Perez Vallejos, Professor of Mental Health and Digital Technology of the School of Medicine and Computer Science, and Dr Alexa  Spence of the School of Psychology, was published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour in March 2022. 

The digital workplace and its dark side: an integrative review has quickly garnered more than 100 citations in Google Scholar, which searches academic publishers, professional societies and pre-print archives to measure the reach and influence of scholarly publications. 

Elizabeth, who is an Economic and Social Research Council and Midlands Graduate School-funded student, said: “Achieving 100 Google Scholar highlights our review’s impact in the digital workplace domain, drawing both academic and industry attention to potential psychosocial harms for digital workers.” 

The review’s analysis of 194 studies revealed insights into workplace technostress, overload, anxiety, interruptions and addiction.  

She added: “We also draw an important distinction between objective stressors and perceptual stress, noting that dark side effects of the digital workplace are not a user problem but a problem that emerges at the interface between humans and technologies.

This distinction helps to identify points at which interventions can alleviate problems observed. By bringing together diverse research insights, our study highlighted potential impacts to employee well-being in an increasingly digitalised work environment.” 

Research Intelligence – support for researchers

Google Scholar is one of several tools for counting citations of academic articles and more information regarding their use can be found in university guidance on responsible use of metrics. 

A new Research Intelligence service from University of Nottingham Libraries supports researchers to build peer reputation and raise awareness of their work. Using scholarly literature, patents, global policy documents, citation data and alternative metrics the service will help researchers to: 

• discover suitable collaborators and benchmark against other research groups 
• use impact data to strengthen funding bids 
• develop publication strategies 
• enhance external and internal academic profiles to increase visibility of research 

To get in the touch with the new service contact: library-researchsupport@nottingham.ac.uk