Researcher Support

Get started with this helpful webinar: SciVal intro and data behind SciVal.

Find more webinars and video tutorials on BrightTalk.

• Get Started with SciVal 
  This help page from SciVal is updated regularly and a good source of information on getting more familiar with SciVal. 
• Using SciVal Responsibly: a guide to interpretation and good practice
  This resource from Loughborough University provides detailed information about each metric found in SciVal, with guides on how they can be used responsibly. 
• BrightTalk: SciVal Webinars
  Find all official SciVal webinars and video tutorials. 

The Benchmarking module lets you easily evaluate your research performance in comparison to others in your region, country, and the world.

Benchmarking analysis in SciVal can provide insights into the:

• Publication patterns and journal placement of peer groups (overview and analysis of the journals which AUS researchers are publishing in compared to peers).
• Collaborative networks of peer groups (overview and analysis of the geographical spread of co-authorship and top collaborating countries and institutions)
• Publication and citation performance of peer groups (overview and analysis of a range of indicators including, among others, the number of published outputs, percent of outputs published in top journals, percent of most cited papers, and the number of outputs which have been cited by patents) 

Learn more about the Benchmarking module.

The Collaboration module is where you can evaluate the existing research collaborations of your institution, a researcher, or a research group. Start with a worldwide view of your collaboration landscape. Then zoom in to individual collaborating institutions and researchers anywhere in the world.

You can also use this module to:

• Identify new opportunities for collaboration partnerships in your own country or worldwide
• See which institutions and researchers your entity is not yet collaborating with
• Filter data by a specific subject area, such as chemistry or biomedical sciences
• Export data and review the underlying list of publications behind every publication count

Learn more about the Collaboration module.

The Reporting section in SciVal allows you to create tailored reports. Select entities, metrics and options from the Overview, Benchmarking and Collaboration modules to save as analyses, and use in your custom reports.

Analyses and reports are stored in a Reporting library accessible via the navigation bar at the top of the screen.

Some important facts to note are:

• SciVal uses a “what you see is what you get” approach, meaning that the filters and options you select will be reflected in the analyses that is saved in Reporting.
• You can only use an analysis in one report. To use the same analysis in a second report, you'll need to copy it.
• Reports, like the analyses in SciVal are living entities. Any new content that is added to SciVal from Scopus through the weekly feed, will be reflected where applicable in the analyses, as they are in the SciVal modules. To save a snapshot in time, you can export a report.

Learn more about the Reporting module. 

Metrics are quantitative measures commonly used to assess the impact of research. They can provide insight into the influence of journals, individual articles, authors, collaborative networks and institutions. 

Metrics are a measure of attention. Metrics should be used with caution because they can only tell you so much about the quality, success or impact of research and researchers. For example, research may receive negative attention and metrics can be influenced by things like discipline and career stage. It's important to be aware of these limitations. 

It is recommended that you use a combination of metrics to give insight when trying to answer questions about research impact. If multiple metrics reinforce each other then users can be more confident in their conclusions. Ideally combining peer review and expert opinion with metrics is advisable. 

  Some popular metrics to consider are:

• Scholarly output: the number of publications
• Citations per publication: average number of citations received per publication
• Outputs in the top citation percentiles: Publications that have reached a particular threshold of citations received
• Outputs in the top journal percentiles: Publications that have been published in the world's top journals
• Field-weighted citation impact: The ratio of citations received relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type and publication year
• Collaboration impact: The average number of citations received by publications that have international, national or institutional co-authorship 
• H-index: A measure of both the productivity and publication impact

Learn more about the metrics in SciVal.