New e-Resource now available – SCOPUS database

Swansea University Library now has a subscription to SCOPUS.

SCOPUS is the largest abstract and citation database of both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. With nearly 19,500 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide, SCOPUS offers researchers a quick, easy and comprehensive resource to support their research needs in a wide variety of subjects including science, engineering, medicine, health and life sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, psychology, and economics.

If you are a researcher you can…

• …find out who is citing you, and how many citations an article or an author has received.
• …use the refine results overview to quickly see the main journals, disciplines and authors that publish in your area of interest.
• …uncover important and relevant articles for your topic.

Take a look at these online tutorials to see how SCOPUS can help your research.

Available both on and off campus, you can access SCOPUS using this link to iFind Discover, the library catalogue and click on the Access this resource link (Athens username and password required)

If you need any further help using this new resource please contact your subject librarians

REF – Assessment framework and guidance on submissions

HEFCE have just published their Assessment framework and guidance on submissions’ which provides the general framework for the REF and guidance on submissions including …’ procedures, the data that will be required, and the criteria and definitions that will apply’.

Updated Membership of REF Panels

HEFCE say that they have now completed the process of appointing panel members through the nominations received. An updated membership of the expert panels for 2011, where the criteria for the assessment will be set, has now been published on:  http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/panels/

HEFCE publish REF timetable

HEfCE has now published the timetable for the Research Excellence Framework.  http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/timetable/

Impact Strategy for the Next Spending Review

Department of Research & Innovation welcome the Research Councils UK to Swansea University to present a seminar and receive questions on their

‘Impact Strategy for the Next Spending Review’

  When: Wednesday 16th March 12.00pm to 1.00pm

Where: SURF Room – 1^st floor Fulton House

Speaker Profiles: Dr Claire Graves is head of Knowledge Transfer and Economic Impact for the RCUK

She was awarded her PHD in Geography at Leicester University, after which Claire researched harbour management and geophysics at Nottingham. Claire moved across to the EPSRC in 2000 where she was the portfolio manager for the transport and automotive sector before moving onto Public Affairs. She was seconded to the RCUK in 2007 where she is now responsible for delivering the cross council impact agenda.

Who will benefit from attending? Anyone interested in Impact from their research

By the end of the seminar, attendees will know more about?  The new funding landscape of RCUK, their Strategic Vision and the Pathways to Impact

Next Steps: places are limited, to enrol please reply to researchandinnovation@swansea.ac.uk

Future Seminars:  31^st March between 10am to 12 noon – Arts and Humanities Research Council (DRI seminar room, 7^th floor Faraday)

REF IMPACT Reduced to 20%

The THE  have just reported that the percentage of  points given to research impact in the REF will be reduced from 25% to 20%.

Read the full story on the THE website or visit the HEFCE website for the report Decisions on assessing research impact

REF Panel Members Announced

Announcement on HEFCE website 21 Feb 2011

The REF team on behalf of the four UK funding bodies today announced the membership of the expert panels for the REF 2014.

Membership of the panels comprises a balance of academic subject experts and those with expertise in the use or contribution of research more widely, as well as members with an international perspective on the main panels.

Further members are still to be appointed by the four funding bodies to a small number of panels. An updated membership list will be published when the process is complete.

The full list of main panel and sub-panel chairs was announced earlier this year.

The REF team will now work with the chairs and members of the panels during 2011 to develop the criteria for the assessment in 2014.

Bibliometrics and peer review – the Italian view

A very interesting new article has just been published by researchers in Italy, who have analysed data from the first Italian national research evaluation to see whether there is a correlation between bibliometric indicators and peer review.

The questions they posed were:

1. Are peer review judgements and (article and journal) bibliometric indicators independent variables?
2. What is the strength of the association?
3. Is the association between peer judgement and article citation rating significantly stronger than the association between peer judgement and journal citation rating?

They found “a compelling body of evidence that judgements given by domain experts and bibliometric indicators are significantly positively correlated” and in their conclusions, they suggest:

Bibliometrics are not independent of peer review assessment. The correlation between peer assessment and bibliometric indicators is significant but not perfect. Peer review should be integrated with bibliometric indicators in national assessment exercises.

Franceschet, M & Constantini, A (2010) “The first Italian research assessment exercise: A bibliometric perspective“, Journal of Informetrics, in press, corrected proof Science Direct [Online].



Development of bibliometric indicators for the REF – HEFCE

HEFCE have published  “Analysis of data from the pilot exercise to develop bibliometric indicators for the REF – The effect of using normalised citation scores for particular staff characteristics”

The report analyses the data from the pilot exercise to develop bibliometric indicators for the REF. It analyses the effect of using bibliometrics  (citation scores) in the REF upon  certain types of research staff. For example, early career researchers will be less likely to have many citations. It also looks at age and sex, gender, ethnicity, disability of researchers as well as those who are part-time staff.

The report recommends:

 If citation data are used then the four UK higher education funding bodies will need to ensure that institutions planning to make submissions to the REF are aware of the results of this analysis so that they can take them into account when selecting staff for inclusion. Further, panels will also need to account for the differences found and will require guidance as part of their equality briefing.

Making an impact: using Journal Citation Reports and other tools to measure the impact of your research

This session for academic staff and researchers will look at the ways you can monitor the impact your publications are having, especially when considering the REF. We will also look at Researcher ID as a way of raising your own profile, Journal Citation Reports, and Web of Science facilities such as cited reference searching, citation mapping, times cited, citation alerts and amending your author name if necessary.

The session will be held in the Library & Information Centre (Room – PC3) on 15th February 2011 from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.

To book a place, please contact i.glen@swan.ac.uk