LibraryScholarly Publishing & Metrics

Evaluating your research outputs

Publishing and MetricsContact Us
One way to evaluate research outputs is to measure its associated metrics. The basis of most metrics is usually the number of times a research output has appeared in citations (the reference lists of other publications). Metrics however do have limitations across disciplines, database coverage, and publishing time frames which you will need to be aware of before using these metrics in any applications or promotional activities.

Publication metrics for

Citations: 

Citations metrics indicate the number of times your work has been cited in other research outputs. Citation metrics only count the engagement with an output: this may include positive or negative engagement. As such it is important to remember citation counts do not reflect the research quality of your research output.

To find citation counts you can use:

Common practice is to exclude self-citations - when you cite another paper you have written yourself - when counting citations. 

  • Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
    Scopus and Scival allow you to compare the citations received by your article compared.
  • Citation benchmarking
    If you need to provide comparison data you can benchmark your research output citations against select authors output metrics using Scival.

 

Reading lists & syllabus:

Determining if your work is included in university required reading lists and school curriculum/syllabus can speak to the educational use of your work. 

Try using a Google search or Open Syllabus to see where your research has been used.

Citations:

Citations of books you have written can be measured in a similar way to citations for journal articles. 

You can use Scopus,  Google Scholar or the free version of Dimensions AI to search for citation metrics.

Reviews: 

Book reviews are critical evaluations of your work in scholarly journals or in the media. Book reviews are available via:

  • Google
  • Reviews within academic journals
  • Publishers websites
  • Booksellers websites

Library holdings: 

To determine the reach of your work you can also assess how many copies of your book/book chapter are available in Libraries across Australia and worldwide. 

You can assess this by searching for your work on Trove or Worldcat.

Reading lists & syllabus:

Determining if your work is included in University required reading lists and school curriculum/syllabus can speak to the educational use of your work. 

Try searching Google or Open Syllabus to see where your research has been used.

NTROs include reports, working papers, standards, grey literature, Hansard, exhibitions, creative works and more. 

Citations: 

NTROs can be measured using citation like all traditional research outputs. However, they may not appear on Web of Science or Scopus. 

Google Scholar, and Dimensions AI are useful for finding citation of NTROs. Be sure to exclude self-citations.

Library holdings: 

To determine the reach of your work you can also assess how many copies of your book/book chapter are available in Libraries across Australia and worldwide. 

You can assess this by searching for your work on Trove or Worldcat.

Publicity & reviews:

You should also track mentions of your work in other publications and websites, for example:

  • ArtsHub
  • Gallery/Institutional websites
  • Media Websites

In order to track engagement with your NTRO you should also gather information such as: 

  • Commissions
  • Awards and Prizes
  • Funding
  • Programme notes
  • Sales, downloads, streaming, playlist data

Datasets can also be cited like other research. 

Tracking of citations for research datasets however is still a developing field. For all CQUniversity research datasets you can however access download and view statistics from aCQUIRe which will assist you in evaluating the reach of your research dataset.

For further information on data citation please see the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) data citation support material. 

Gathering alternative metrics will complement traditional citations, providing a more well-rounded societal view of when, how, and where your research is engaged with.

Citations and metrics are used in the assessment of research outputs, researchers, and research institutions. 

This has led to global initiatives for the responsible use of metrics like the Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics and The Metric Tide report.

When you are using metrics make sure you use them in accordance with your intended purpose. 

Some grant and promotion applications will provide rules or guidance around the use of metrics. 

Make sure you refer to these specific rules to determine what metric information should or shouldn't be included in your application. Funding rules often change from year to year.