RSP - Publishing Support

The Open Scholarly Research and Publications Team and Research, Excellence, Impact and Culture Team can deliver a variety of training sessions on understanding and using metrics as well the tools to produce and analyse this data.  

Overview sessions will run twice a year and are open to all staff and research students, for details of timings and to book onto a session please see the events calendar on this page. 

For more information on any of these sessions, to arrange hands on workshops for your area or to discuss bespoke sessions please contact us.
 

Overview sessions: 

• Understanding and using research metrics 

Research metrics are quantitative indicators which can be used to assess the quality and influence of research outputs. This session will provide an overview of some of the commonly used metrics, such as, citation counts and journal rankings and the benefits and limitations of these. We will also cover some of the elements to consider when choosing your metrics and the consequences of misuse.  

• Introduction to Scopus (Bibliographic Database) 

Scopus is a comprehensive bibliographic database including tens of millions of records from journals, books, and conference proceedings and over 17 million author profiles. This introductory session will provide an overview of how to create searches and alerts for research outputs and authors in your subject area, an understanding of the metrics and alternative metrics available in Scopus and how to view and compare journals in your field. 

• Introduction to SciVal 

We recommend attending the introduction to Scopus session prior to this.  

SciVal is a tool which allows you to delve into the data from Scopus and gain insights into your research area. This introductory session will give you an overview of how to create entities (individuals, groups of researchers, groups of publications, institutions and research areas) which you can analyse in SciVal to gain greater insight into who the leaders in the field are, how to find collaborative partners in different countries or disciplines and identify and demonstrate research strengths.  
 

Hands on Workshops: 

• Exploring metrics in Scopus and SciVal 

We recommend attending the introductory sessions above prior to this workshop. 

This hands on workshop will take you through some of the commonly used metrics in Scopus and SciVal.  

• Exploring research areas in Scopus 

This hands on workshop will talk you through building search queries in Scopus and analysing the results to determine the most popular journals and the most prolific authors and institutions. It will also look at how to manage author profiles and delve into an author’s outputs. 

• Exploring research areas in SciVal 

We recommend attending the Scopus hands on workshop prior to this session. 

This hands on workshop will talk you though creating entities (individuals, groups and research areas) in SciVal and the different ways you can analyse and report on these within the tool. Focussing on using SciVal to build collaborative networks through delving into research areas to find authors and institutions working in those areas, using citation data for new insights and viewing trends through time. 
 

1-2-1 and small group sessions: 

• If you have a specific query on metrics/SciVal/Scopus that you’d like to discuss please contact us with the details and we will get back to you.