Metrics for Grant Applications and Promotions

Consider the following indicators for tracking and evaluating the impact of your article. See also: Elsevier Research metrics quick reference (PDF download).

FOR GRANT APPLICATIONS

For DECRA (data sourced from SciVal):

• Scholarly Output - Total number of publications credited to a particular author over the last five years. See also SciVal FAQ: Scholarly Output.
• FWCI (Field Weighted Citation Impact) - how the number of citations received by an article compares to the average or expected number of citations received by other similar publications. Check your Scopus research profile or Web of Science.
• h-index — a calculated indicator of productivity and impact of a researcher. We recommend using the Scopus researcher profile h-index as your preferred h-index as the University and most world university rankings base their metrics on Scopus data and SciVal (which used Scopus data).
• Percent of Outputs in Top 10 citation percentile -  the percentage of your papers that have been cited enough times to place them in the top 10%. This is normalised for category, year, and document type.
• Percent of Publications Cited - This is the percentage of your publications that have been cited.

Other key metrics:

• Citation count — the number of times other authors have cited an article
• Collaboration metrics — the percentage of papers produced with co-authors. Consider using both national and, in particular, international collaboration metrics, from SciVal or InCites (see: SciVal Collaboration and Impact metrics)
• Journal quality - journal impact metrics such as SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Journal Impact Factor (JIF), and CiteScore.
• Altmetrics (Alternative metrics) — track mentions, likes and shares on a variety of social platforms, online services and websites. Use Altmetric Explorer or your publication PlumX Metrics in Scopus.
• Web of Science Researcher Profile — for your record of peer review and service on editorial boards

FOR ACADEMIC PROMOTION APPLICATIONS

Your Research Activity Statement is available from the Research Portal. It includes the following SciVal metrics:

• Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) 
• h-index with self-cites 
  • Use 'h-index' 
  • Filter publications to Journal Articles and Reviews 
  • Include self-cites 
• h-index without self-cites 
  • Use 'h-index' 
  • Don't include self-cites 
• Percent of Articles Cited 
• Percent of Articles in Top 10 Percentile (Field-Weighted) 
  • Use 'Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles' 
  • Select 'Show as field-weighted' 
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 
• SJR Best Quartile (a.k.a. Publications in Journal Quartiles) 
• Publications as First Author 
• Publications as Last Author 
• Publications as Other Author

In addition:

• Section 3a of the Academic Promotions Guidelines indicates that applicants must discuss the quality and impact of their teaching and student learning. Visit the Western Open Books Quick Start Guide for further information about evidencing your teaching practice.
• Section 3b of the Academic Promotions Guidelines indicates that applicants should outline the research output, such as publications (including Non-Traditional Research Outputs),  particularly demonstrating the quality and peer recognition of research achievements relative to your discipline standards.
• Levels D and E applicants must also include three significant scholarly sole-authored or collaborative works with their application, recommending that at least two of the three works be within the last five years or since your last promotion. These significant works must be submitted with your application as either: a single electronic copy of each significant work (preferred); or three hard copies of each of your significant works. See Section 5 of the Academic Promotions Guidelines for more information.
• In your Academic Promotion Application CV, Textbook reviews can be included as applicable achievements (see page 13 of the Academic Promotions Guidelines under Teaching and Learning Information).

For more information about your Research Activity Statement, email the Research Data Team: ResearchData@westernsydney.edu.au 

Analysing your publications in Scopus and Web of Science will tell you:

• your main research areas
• if your research spans other research areas, indicating if your research is multidisciplinary.

Example

"My work is multidisciplinary - 34% of my articles are in the subject area of biochemistry, 29% in biophysics and 16% in oncology (Web of Science, 1/12/2019)"

Find your level of collaboration by analysing your metrics in Web of Science and Scopus.

• Do any publications have a corporate/industry author?
• How many publications have a non-WSU or overseas author?

See also: Collaborations.

Example

"70% of my journal articles have non-WSU Australian-based co-authors, with 15% of my papers involving international co-authors, including three papers with Harvard University co-authors (Web of Science, 1/12/2019)"

This Metrics for grant applications guide includes instructions on finding and using metrics to provide evidence of your track record and top papers.