One of the common ways to find impact evidence is through websites. You might find videos, reports, testimonials or other important information posted publicly online which demonstrates the impact of your research. But websites can change with content being edited or removed, meaning that these are not a stable source of evidence of your impact. What can you do with webpages to create a permanent record of your impact?

Saving page as PDF

This presents the option to save all, or selected parts, of a webpage in one PDF file.

  • Open the browser menu (three dots at top right of browser) and then select ‘Print’
    OR press Ctrl+P
  • Set Destination to ‘Save as PDF’
  • If you don’t want to save full webpage, use ‘Pages’ dropdown to select parts to save
  • Expand ‘More settings’ and select ‘Headers and Footers’. This will include a time and date stamp on each page of the PDF. 
  • Save
  • Once saved, make sure that the File is stored in an appropriate location with a relevant title.

Archive webpage

The Wayback Machine is a handy tool to archive a full webpage. You can find pages that have previously been archived, or capture a webpage as it is on the day that you access it. 

  • Copy the full address of the page that you need to archive. 
  • Visit web.archive.org
  • Paste the address in the ‘Wayback Machine’ search bar to find prior archive entries.
  • Paste the address in the “Save Page Now” field to create an archive of the page at the time of access.
  • Copy the archive link that is generated, and save this in a document in an appropriate location with a relevant title.

Remember that evidence should encompass both the impact that has been generated, and its reliance on the underpinning research. Multiple pieces of evidence may be required to encompass this. You can check our prior blogs on sources of impact evidence and impact confidentiality, and find more resources around Impact Evidence in our Resource Drive. You can also contact impact@port.ac.uk if you have specific questions.