Getting Smarter at Publishing and
Citations
Cheryl Stevens
Academic Services Librarian
Library and Learning Services
Division of Information Services
c.stevens@griffith.edu.au
373 53131/0411 325 291
@GUCherylS
http://serendipitiouslibrarian.weebly.com
Information Services
University’s research agenda
• It is important to be able to show the value of
academic research
• But we all want our research to be seen, read,
used and have impact
Information Services
Session aims to help you
• Make informed decisions about where to publish
= journal impact
• Understand the significance of citation measures
in the publishing process = publications impact;
i.e. how to access citations and how to increase
them
Information Services
Selecting a suitable journal
• Readership – academic, industry, general
public
• Peer-reviewed – if you wish other researchers
to read and cite your research
• Journal quality/prestige – impact factors (ECR
aim low to build up output and esteem first)
• Relevance – check journal aims and scope
• Publisher policies - open access & selfarchiving
Information Services
Sources of journal information
• Experienced researchers/colleagues
• Your own bibliography - chances are if you are
citing from specific journal, you will be writing
something of equal interest to other readers of
that journal
• Ulrichsweb = Periodical Directory
• Databases in your field – which journals come
up the most often when searching
• Journal impact databases (WoS/Scopus)
Information Services
Journal impact measures
• Measure of the frequency with which the "average
article" in a journal has been cited in a specific year
or period – if high impact (e.g. Nature = 38.597),
then is read and cited widely within its discipline and
publishes important, high-quality work; 5 low for
science but high for social science publication;
education highest IF is 4.229
• Quantitative method of evaluating journals - not a
substitute for qualitative measures such as peerreview
Information Services
Journal impact sources
• Scopus Journal Analyzer
• Journal Citation Reports (Web of Science)
• ERA journal ranking – no longer used; but see
ERA 2012 journal list as list of active, peer
reviewed, scholarly journals that publish
original research (2015 list not published yet)
http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2012/era_journ
al_list.htm
Information Services
Scopus Journal Analyzer
Information Services
Scopus Journal Analyzer
Information Services
Journal Citation Reports (WoS)
Information Services
Be aware of where you publish
• Beall’s List provides a list of predatory scholarly openaccess publishers
http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/06/bealls-list-ofpredatory-publishers-2013/
• “Criteria for determining predatory open-access
publishers” by Jeffrey Beall (2nd edition)
http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/30/criteria-fordetermining-predatory-open-access-publishers-2ndedition/
Information Services
Session aimed to help you
• Make informed decisions about where to publish
a) Identify potential journals to publish in
b) Compare the performance of different journals
within a specific discipline
c) Highlight journals that provide highest impact
and/or reach
d) Which journals not to publish in
Information Services
Professional reading
• Wolfson, A.J., Brooks, M.A., Kumbier, A.L., &
Lenares, D.A. (2013). Monitoring and promoting
the impact of pedagogically related scholarship.
Biochemstry and Molecular Biology, 41(6), 365368
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libraryproxy.griffith.ed
u.au/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1539-3429
Information Services
Professional reading
• “A World Digital Library is coming true!” by
Robert Darnton, The New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/
may/22/world-digital-library-coming-true/
Information Services
Live demonstration – Ulrichsweb,
Scopus Journal Analyzer, Journal
Citation Reports (Web of Science)
Session aims to help you
• Understand the significance of citation measures
in the publishing process
Information Services
Publishing models
• Traditional
 Contract between you and publisher to reproduce, distribute
and sell your work for a fee
 Subscription model – individual or institutional
 Citation and abstract only freely available
• Open access
 Freely available to all for viewing or downloading
 Gold OA – provides immediate OA to all of its articles on the
publisher’s website
 Green OA – authors publish in any journal and then selfarchive preprint/postprint in GRO or on other OA website
Information Services
Open access journals
• Benefits
Greater exposure
Universal access
Easier discovery
Often faster timeline to publication
Retain own copyright under Creative Commons
Greater indexing and retrieval
• Costs
May be direct cost to you or your institution
May be too new to be indexed by major databases
May not have an impact factor yet
Information Services
OA and citation impact
Information Services
Finding open access journals
• Open access publishers
Directory of Open Access Journals ( DOAJ)
http://doaj.org/
Ulrichsweb: browse to find open access
Elsevier journal finder (limit to open access)
http://journalfinder.elsevier.com
Information Services
Open access repositories
• Author self-archiving repositories
Griffith Research Online
Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
• Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) – Publishing
agreements and publishers' open access policies
 List http://www.oaklist.qut.edu.au/
• SHERPA RoMEO - Publisher's copyright & archiving
policies
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Information Services
Information Services
Research Impact
How is research impact measured?
• Research impact generates funding
• Prestige/impact of journal
• Number of citations – individual researcher and at
institutional level
• H index – to do with publications
• Commercialisation – visitor hits on websites;
downloads of papers (eprints)
• Altmetrics: http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/
Information Services
H index
• Measure of number of publications published
(= productivity) and how often they are cited (=
impact)
• Based on citation data
• A researcher with an H index of 15 has at least
15 papers which have been cited 15 times
Information Services
Citation databases
• Scopus
• Web of Science (Science, Social Sciences and
Arts & Humanities Citation Indexes; Book
Citation Indexes)
• Google Scholar
»
»
»
»
free
coverage broader than Web of Science or Scopus
includes theses, books, book chapters
useful to Business, Arts, Education and
Humanities
• Publish or Perish : Anne-Wil Harzing
Information Services
How to raise citation levels (1)
• Pick as distinctive a version of your author name as
possible
• Choose appropriate and distinctive titles and sub-titles,
and appropriate keywords for indexing
• Write informative article titles, abstracts and book
blurbs
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/thehandbook/chapter-4-getting-better-cited/
• Work with colleagues to produce multi-authored
outputs – across universities and/or countries
• Collaborate with peers with a publishing history
Information Services
How to raise citation levels (2)
• Consider cross-disciplinary research projects
• Build communication and dissemination plans into
research plans early on
• Always put a version of any output on the open web;
e.g. Griffith Research Online
• Publish in high-profile, high-impact journals and know
your journals and impact factor
• Know your ERA relevant field of research codes; e.g.
Division 13 = Education, 1302 Curriculum and
Pedagogy
Information Services
How to raise citation levels (3)
• Self-citations count – keep self-citation rate in line with
academics in the same discipline
• Publish review articles
• Rework conference papers into articles
• Get yourself known – conferences, think tanks,
community groups, consultancies, web presence
• Build scholarly networks via social media –
au.linkedin.com; academia.edu (keep your information
up-to-date); Twitter
Information Services
How to raise citation levels (4)
• Journal articles seem to attract higher citations than
chapters in books and conference papers; perhaps
simply because they are easier to locate
• Register with Google Scholar Citations Service,
ORCID (http://orcid.org/) - takes 30 secs, Researcher
ID (Web of Science), Author ID (Scopus)
• Proven researcher – Professor Stephen Billett, Adult
and Vocational Education – h-index of 45; 8103
citations over his career
• Education researchers need to be connected to
respond more effectively to global issues
Information Services
Summary:
• Produce a piece of well written, top quality, original research
• Get it out there in the highest quality refereed journal that you can
• Credit the right author – consistent form of your name and ORCID
is recommended
• Check and verify the final proofs of your work regarding your
name and affiliation
• Make it open as evidence supports that open access papers are
more highly cited
• Promote your work by telling EVERYONE!
As @johnwlamp says:
It’s no longer a matter of ‘publish or perish’, but ‘be visible or
vanish’.
Information Services
Publishing research + generating research impact
secures funding for the growth of the university
and future research initiatives.
Information Services
Further reference: publishing + impact
• Griffith Library’s Support for Researchers guide
get published (includes Open access)
measure impact
Information Services
Live demonstration – Google
Scholar Citations profile, Scopus
Altmetrics
Thank you!