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Research evidence for grants and promotion

A 'how to' guide on information and tools for capturing evidence of, and describing, research outputs.

Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)

The Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) for an article is the ratio of the document's citations to the average number of citations received by all similar documents in the research field over a three-year period.

The global mean of the FWCI is 1.0, so an FWCI of 1.50 means 50% more cited than the world average; whereas, an FWCI of 0.75 means 25% less cited than the world average.

The article FWCI is an effective metric for early career researchers who may have only a small number of high-impact works.


Example statement

"My 2020 article on XYZ has been cited 32 times and has a field-weighted citation impact of 2.52 which indicates that it received over two and a half times the number of citations the average article in this field received." (source: Scopus, 21 December 2023)


How to find the FWCI of a paper in Scopus

  1. Go to Scopus
  2. Search and select an article title
  3. The FWCI for that paper is listed with other metrics below the list of authors.

FWCI in Scopus

Image: Copyright © Elsevier. Used under licence.

Hot and highly cited papers

Essential Science Indicators (ESI) is an analytical tool that helps you identify top-performing research in the Web of Science Core Collection.

Hot Papers are papers published in the last two years that are receiving citations quickly after publication. These papers have been cited enough times in the most recent bimonthly period to place them in the top 0.1% when compared to papers in the same field and added to the database in the same period.                                              

Highly Cited Papers are papers that perform in the top 1% based on the number of citations received when compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year.

Highly cited and hot papers

    

 

Image: Copyright © Clarivate. Used under licence.


Example statement

"I have one highly cited paper of my 27 publications listed in Web of Science. My one highly cited paper is in the top 1% of other papers in my field in the same year." (source: ESI, 21 December 2023)

How to find top papers in Essential Science Indicators

  1. Go to Essential Science Indicators
  2. From Results List select Authors
  3. From the Filter Results By, add the filter Authors
  4. Search by researcher's name
  5. Choose to display Top papers, Hot papers, or Highly Cited Papers.
     

HIghly cited papers in ESI

Image: Copyright © Clarivate. Used under licence.

Articles in top journal percentiles

Publications in top journal percentiles can demonstrate the percentage of outputs that have been published in highly regarded journals.

In SciVal, you can view the percentage of publications in top journal percentiles according to three journal metrics. These are the CiteScore percentile, SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper) and SJR (SCImago Journal Rank).


Example statement

"I have published 3 papers between 2020-2023 that are listed in the Scopus database. Of those papers, 33.3% of them are published in the top 10% most cited journals according to the SCImago Journal Ranking." (source: SciVal, 22 December 2023)

How to identify the percentage of journals published in top journals

 

  1. In SciVal, select Explore
  2. From the Entity list, from Researchers and Groups, select your name, or use the Create/Import option to Define a researcher
  3. Within the Summary tab, scroll down to the heading Performance Indicators to view the Publications in Top 10% Journal Percentiles
  4. You can change the metric by which the percentile is defined, for example, to SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR)
  5. Select Analyze in more detail for more comprehensive data.

SciVal - Publications in Top Journal Percentiles

Image: Copyright © Elsevier. Used under licence.

Journal rankings

Articles published in top quartile journals can be a method for indicating quality of research. There are several journal rankings lists - each uses different methods for determining the rankings, none are comprehensive and vary according to discipline.


Example statement

"My 2022 article published in the Journal of Geographical Analysis has been cited 21 times. The journal is in the top-quartile for the area of Earth-Surface Processes and is ranked 22/161 of journals according to the SCImago Journal Rankings." (Source: SCImago, 22 December 2023)

How to view top quartile journals

There are several methods to view journal rankings lists. See the Library's Research Metrics guide to view a comprehensive list of rankings lists. The steps below outline using SCImago Journal Rankings (SJR).

  1. In SJR, search for the journal title
  2. Select the journal from the search results and scroll down to view a breakdown of quartile ranking by year and subject area and category
  3. You can also select a subject area and category to view further analysis of journal rankings in comparison with other journal titles.

Scimago Journal Ranking

Image: Copyright © Scimago. Used under licence.

International reach

Citation databases like Scopus and Web of Science can be used to view qualitative measures of your research - for example, who is citing your research and which country and institutions they are from.


Example statement

"My publications in Scopus have been cited internationally, including researchers in Europe, China and North America from institutions such as Gent University and the University of California." (Source: Scopus, 22 December 2023)


How to find citing authors, institutions and countries in Scopus

  1. Go to Scopus
  2. Select the Author tab and search for the name of a researcher. Add affiliation to limit search results
  3. Select the Documents tab and then View list in search results
  4. Select the All box, and then View cited by to see all the citing articles
  5. In the filter section on the left, select the author's name and select Exclude to remove them as a citing author
  6. Select Analyze results to view who is citing the author's work - e.g., by author, affiliation, country, subject area and source.

 

How to use citation reports in Web of Science

View the following video to find who is citing your work in Web of Science:

Create citation reports in Web of Science - YouTube (1:57mins) by Web of Science Training

Books and book chapters

While scholarly books and chapters may appear in citation databases like those above, there are other measures of impact that can be considered.

Evidence of the impact of books and chapters can include: 

  • Information from publishers (ie. sales or download figures)
  • Prestige of the publisher
  • Inclusion on university reading lists
  • Award nominations or prizes
  • Best-seller lists
  • Editions or translations
  • Social media mentions or shares
  • Review of the work published
  • Library holdings.

Example statements

"The text "Environmental Engineering," which included my chapter titled "Turbine design," was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. The book was nominated for Best New Environmental Engineering Text for 2022 by Engineers Australia." (Source: Engineers Australia, 8 December, 2022)

"My book has been adopted as required reading in courses at five Australian universities. It is currently held by 15 Australian academic libraries." (Source: Trove, 27 April, 2023)