Research metrics aim to give a balanced, multi-dimensional view for assessing published research. Built on the depth and breadth of its data sources, Elsevier works with researchers, publishers, bibliometrics, librarians, institutional leaders, and others in the research community to offer an evolving basket of metrics that complement qualitative insights.
Throughout our SciVal (and other Elsevier solutions), you can access multiple metrics for entities including Scopus Sources (e.g. journals), Research Outputs (e.g. articles), Researchers/authors, and Institutions.
To help with selecting appropriate metrics to help answer your questions, we provide transparency around the underlying data and metric guidance directly within SciVal as well as a Research Metrics Guidebook. Furthermore, we encourage anyone using research metrics as part of decision-making processes, to follow two guiding principles, namely:
Always use both qualitative and quantitative input into your decisions
Always use more than one research metric as the quantitative input
This “triangulation” of approaches increases the richness and reliability of your evidence base and helps avoids misinterpretation of metrics by understanding their strengths and weaknesses while balancing them with qualitative expert input. There are no black or white rules but we support the responsible use of metrics so they can be a positive addition to an evidence base and research culture.
For many years, Elsevier has supported the careful use of metrics and indicators in the evaluation of research and has advocated for a combined qualitative and quantitative approach. Following the successful Snowball Metrics community partnership on research metrics, the International Center for the Study of Research (ICSR) was established in June 2019 to work in partnership with the research community to further develop responsible approaches to research evaluation. As a part of this, Elsevier has:
Elsevier has endorsed the Leiden Manifesto and signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) to demonstrate its commitment to the responsible use of metrics.
Views Count: Total views received by publications of the selected entities. Learn more
Outputs in Top Views Percentiles: The number of publications of a selected entity that are highly viewed, having reached a threshold of views received. Learn more
Views per Publication: The average number of views per publication. Learn more
Field-Weighted Views Impact: The average ratio of views relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type and publication year. Learn more
Scholarly Output cited by Policy: The number of Scholarly Outputs that are cited in Policy documents. Learn more
Citing Policy Documents: The count of Policy Documents citing your entity's Scholarly Output. Learn more
Policy Citations: The total policy citations received by the Scholarly Output in SciVal. Learn more
Citing Policy Bodies: The count of Policy Bodies citing your entity. Learn more
Citing Policy Bodies Countries: The count of policy body countries citing your entity. Learn more
Citing-Patents Count: The count of patents citing the scholarly output published by the selected entity, i.e. 200 patents have cited articles published by Athena University over the past 5 years. Learn more
Scholarly Output cited by Patents: The count of scholarly outputs published by the selected entity that have been cited in patents, i.e. 400 publications from Athena University have been cited by patents over the past 5 years. Learn more
Patent-Citations Count: The count of patent citations received by the selected entity, i.e. Athena University has been cited 600 times by patents over the past 5 years. In practice, this means that the 400 publications from Athena University have been cited 600 times by the 200 patents. Learn more
Patent-Citations per Scholarly Output: Average patent-citations received by 1,000 scholarly outputs published by the selected entity, i.e. divide the patent-citation counts by the total scholarly output of the university for that period and multiply by 1,000. So, if Athena University had published 10,000 publications in the 5-year period, their patent citations per scholarly output would be (600/10,000) x 1,000 = 60. Learn more
Awards Volume: The count and value of grant awards. Awards are mapped to the year of the award where the total amount is allocated. Learn more
Awards Value and Annualized Awards Value: The awards value is split evenly over its lifetime. Learn more
Citation Impact metrics indicate the influence of an entity’s output, as indicated by various types of citation counts. To evaluate the impact of your research, you can use SciVal to analyze your institution’s citation metrics. Useful metrics include:
Collaboration in SciVal indicates the extent to which an entity’s publications have international, national, or institutional co-authorship, and single authorship. This number is a count unless the percentage symbol (%) is visible Learn more
Collaboration Impact in SciVal indicates the citation impact of an entity’s publications with particular types of geographical collaboration: how many citations do this entity’s internationally, nationally, or institutionally co-authored publications receive, as well as those with a single author? Learn more
Academic-Corporate Collaboration in SciVal indicates the degree of collaboration between academic and corporate affiliations: to what extent are this entity’s publications co-authored across the academic and corporate, or industrial, sectors? Learn more
Academic-Corporate Collaboration Impact in SciVal indicates the citation impact of an entity’s publications with or without both academic and corporate affiliations: how many citations do this entity’s publications receive when they list both academic and corporate affiliations, versus when they do not? Learn more
SciVal now brings rich information about each metric directly into the page you’re looking at within all modules or you can access the Support Center for more guidance and links to the Research Metrics Guidebooks.
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Understanding metrics
Strengths and weaknesses in the context
Selection and interpretation of metrics
What affects their values, besides performance?
Collaboration: The extent of international, national, and institutional co-authorship. Learn more
Collaboration Impact: The average number of citations received by publications that have international, national, or institutional co-authorship. Learn more
Academic-Corporate Collaboration: Publications with both academic and corporate affiliations. Learn more
Academic-Corporate Collaboration Impact: Citations per publication received by those publications with and without academic-corporate collaboration. Learn more
Scholarly Output: The number of publications of a selected entity. Learn more
Subject Area Count: The number of Subject Areas in which a selected entity's publications have appeared. Learn more
Scopus Source Title Count: The number of Scopus Sources in which a selected entity's publications have appeared. Learn more
Relative Activity Index: The share of an entity's publications in a subject area, relative to the global share of publications in the same subject area. Learn more
Citation Count: Total citations received by publications of the selected entities. Learn more
Field-Weighted Citation Impact: The average ratio of citations received relative to the expected world average for the subject field, publication type and publication year. Learn more
Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles: The number of publications of a selected entity that are highly cited, having reached a threshold of citations received. Learn more
Publications in Top Journal Quartiles: The number of publications of a selected entity that have been published in the selected journal quartiles. Learn more
Publications in Top Journal Percentiles: The number of publications of a selected entity that have been published in the world's top journals. Learn more
Citations per Publication: The average number of citations received per publication. Learn more
Cited Publications: Publications that have received at least one citation. Learn more
h-indices: A measure of both the productivity and citation impact of an entity, based on the number of publications as well as the number of citations they have received. h5-index is h-index for the past 5 years. g-index emphasizes the most highly cited publications. m-index is h-index per year. Learn more
Number of Citing Countries: The number of distinct Countries represented by the publications citing a selected entity. Learn more
Mass Media: Total of mentions in the media received by publications of the selected entities. Learn more
Media Exposure: The number of media mentions weighted by type of publication, demographics, and audience reach. Learn more
Prominence Percentile: The percentile of a Topic by worldwide Topic or Topic Cluster Prominence. Prominence combines Citation Count, Scopus Views Count and Average CiteScore metrics to indicate the momentum of the Topic or Topic Cluster. Prominence gives an indication of momentum and is not a quality indicator. Learn more
CiteScore: The average number of citations received in a calendar year for a journal, by all items published in that journal in the preceding three years. Learn more
SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper): Is a ratio between the “Raw Impact per Paper” compared to the expected Citations per Publication, of that journal’s field. It’s a field-normalized metric. The average SNIP value for all journals in Scopus is 1.000. Learn more
SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): Measures the prestige of citations received by a journal and field-normalizes them. The methodology is similar to that of Google PageRank. The average SJR value for all journals in Scopus is 1.000. Learn more