Research Metrics Toolkit

For information about research outputs relevant to your researcher profile, see Section 7: Research of your Academic Unit Work Plan Policy and the following research outputs per academic unit:

• School of Science:
  • Publication outputs in Q1 and Q2 journals (SCImago) over the last three years
  • An author's M-index (Scopus h-index divided by years since graduation with a PhD (taking into account career interruptions)); and
  • 'Media' (alternate publications including The Conversation, public reports, media interviews, etc.).
• Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE):
  • Prepare and submit high-quality research papers for publication
  • Attain measures of academic esteem such as:
    • awards, recognised awards, prestigious international awards, or recognition by peers
    • co-authorship on a scientific paper, or
    • memberships of committees (national or international committees), academies, or expert panels or editorial panels of journals.
• MARCS Institute (MARCS): Given the diverse nature of the research carried out at MARCS, where possible, a suite of
  quality metrics and indicators will be made available to researchers from different fields.
  • Prepare and submit high-quality research papers for publication
  • Attain measures of academic esteem such as:
    • awards, recognised awards, prestigious international awards, or recognition by peers
    • co-authorship on a scientific paper or
    • memberships of committees (national or international committees), academies, expert panels, or editorial panels of journals.
• School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences: The allocation of a research profile and a research workload should be agreed upon by the staff member and their supervisor using suitable discipline-specific reference data:
  • Typically, the most recent ERA data for the relevant (sub-) field should be used as a benchmark for evaluating a staff member’s research output against the definitions of the research profiles in Clauses 7.1 to 7.3. of the School's Work Plan Policy
  • Non-conventional research outputs will be considered in this context using the ERA eligibility requirements
  • Service to the community or the academic discipline (including refereeing or the organisation of conferences) or to professional
    engagement (including leadership roles in professional bodies such as board membership).
  • Refereeing (for instance, membership of editorial boards, requests for refereeing, and the like).
• School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment:
  • Weighted Publication Outputs (last six years) (at least 50% of journal publications are required to be Q1 journals for claiming above 30% research workload)
  • Eligible outputs include research books, book chapters, journal articles, refereed conference publications, creative works, and commissioned reports, averaged across three years. HERDC weightings (one significant book equivalent to five journal articles) should be considered. The quality and quantity of the outputs should be considered, with improvement in research output quality being an important target. The ranges above provide the opportunity to balance these considerations.

Different databases specialise in providing metrics data about different publications (e.g. journal articles, books, book chapters, etc.).

The databases where you will likely find references to your work (with advice about how to search them) are listed below. To search a database, use the Field in your Field of Research (FoR) code or from your research question to search the Title field in a database or to search by subject.

Start your search strategy by using the following resources.

• Endeavour to publish in quality publishing houses and quality journals. If you don't find a suitable journal in these Lists, search the databases below, starting with Scopus Sources database.

Give careful thought to record-keeping, ideally before you start.

• It is advisable to use a spreadsheet or Word document.
• Here is a suggested spreadsheet template [Excel download] for collecting citations.

Even if you have not used EndNote before, compiling an EndNote library of references that have cited your work can be an excellent resource. Using EndNote, you can:

• export detailed citation data from many databases with a few clicks
• easily identify duplicate references
• see at a glance who is citing your work and in what context

Contact the Library if you think EndNote could assist you or if you are unsure where to start.

Remember:

• there are more ways to impact your discipline than to be cited in academic works. The context surrounding citing references can provide important evidence of impact.

For example:

• has your work been cited by esteemed authors (e.g., professors of international standing, textbook authors) or in journals with a high impact factor?
• has your work, or an article that cited your work, been referred to in a judicial or administrative decision?
• is your work cited in non-academic documents relied on by industry or the community, e.g. Australian standards, in legislation?
• have you been cited by policy reports or textbooks?

As a researcher, you may have to explain your research impact to audiences or reviewers who are not from the same discipline as you.

Carefully consider how you can frame your research to impress a non-academic reader. For exemplar statements, take a look at the SciVal, InCites, Altmetric Explorer, and Google Scholar metrics.

Article-level metrics are usually available from the article's record page in different databases. However, to get some information, such as journal metrics, you may be required to go to other resources (e.g., SCImago). Similar to author metrics, the numbers might differ across databases due to their coverage.

Metrics and indicators for books and chapters can be challenging to find. This is due to the limitation in indexing books in the major citation databases (such as Scopus and Web of Science) compared to journals. Google Scholar is another key tool for gathering citation metrics and reviews of books and chapters.

Similar to books and chapters, article-level metrics for conference papers can be difficult to find. The prestige and credentials of the conference and its organiser can often indicate the quality and status of a conference in its related research fields.

It's critical to be strategic when choosing which conference to attend and present your papers at. For more information, see the Conference: The how-to-choose guide.

Author-level metrics are available from your profiles in Elements, Scopus, Web of Science, or Google Scholar and take into account all your publications that are indexed (available) in the related database. The numbers might be different in different databases due to their coverage.

You can use our subscribed benchmarking tools (SciVal and InCites) to indicate your work's engagement and outstanding impact within your discipline and the wider community. The benchmarking is available against your peers and overall institution, country or global performance.

Altmetrics, or Alternative Metrics, refers to data that indicate the impact or attention a particular work receives on social media such as views, downloads, mentions in the media, and shares via platforms such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook and Mendeley. Altmetric providers also track citations in publications such as policy documents, patents, and medical guidelines.