Abstract
How can one evaluate the influence of a particular researcher in a given field? Similar to how the impact factor measures a journal's prominence, the Researcher Influence Factor (RIF) aims to assess the prominence of individual researchers in a field of study. The RIF takes into account the citations received by a researcher's publications in a given field, as well as an estimation of a researcher's social capital through collaborations with other researchers. Specifically, the RIF formula developed and used to evaluate a researcher's prominence included the number of citations received by publications as a primary author, the number of citations received by publications as a secondary author divided by two, and the number of connections to other researchers as revealed by a co-authorship network. Analysis of the coaching science field revealed a dominance of North American researchers. Top researchers in coaching science were found to be predominantly male professors affiliated with kinesiology departments at North American universities. Overall, the field appears to be influenced by a small set of researchers with similar profiles, but specialized in different research areas of coaching science. The RIF formula will also be discussed in comparison to other ways of assessing researchers' influence such as the h-index.Acknowledgments: Funding support provided by the Division of Graduate Studies, California State University, Fresno