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SciVal’s Field weighted citation impact: Sample size matters!

Guidance, Publishing, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, writing

There’s been a buzz on social media recently about Field weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) particularly around the recent leak from the University of Manchester that the FWCI is one of the measures suggested by which to assess academics most at risk of redundancy:

In his recent blog on The Bibliomagician Blog  (reposted here with permission) Iain Rowlands a Research Information & Intelligence Specialist at King’s College London and a member of the LIS-Bibliometrics committee questions the stability of the FWCI indicator for sets of fewer than 10,000 documents. Ian invites others to use his methodology to further test his theory…

SciVal’s field-weighted citation impact (FWCI) is an article-level metric that takes the form of a simple ratio: actual citations to a given output divided by the expected rate for outputs of similar age, subject and publication type.  FWCI has the dual merits of simplicity and ease of interpretation: a value of 2 indicates that an output has achieved twice the expected impact relative to the world literature.  It is a really useful addition to the benchmarking toolkit.

The trouble is that, typically, the distribution of citations to outputs is highly skewed, with most outputs achieving minimal impact at one end and a small number of extreme statistical outliers at the other.  Applying the arithmetic mean to data distributed like this, as does FWCI, is not ideal because the outliers can exert a strong leveraging effect, “inflating” the average for the whole set.  This effect is likely to be more marked the smaller the sample size.

I explored this effect in a simple experiment.  I downloaded SciVal FWCI values for 52,118 King’s College London papers published up until 2014.  I then calculated mean FWCI and 95% confidence (or stability) intervals for the whole sample using the bootstrapping[1] feature in SPSS.  Then I took progressively smaller random samples (99%, 98%, and so on to 1%, then 0.1%), recalculating mean FWCI and stability intervals each time.

The findings shows how mean FWCI becomes less stable as sample size decreases.  Highly cited outliers are relatively uncommon, but their chance inclusion or exclusion makes a big difference, especially as the number of outputs decreases.  In this experiment, FWCI values range across four orders of magnitude, from 0.03 to 398.28.

FWCI chart_black

What does this mean for interpreting FWCI, especially when benchmarking? The table below offers some guidance.  It shows typical stability intervals around FWCI at different scales.  The final column assumes that SciVal spits out a value of 2.20 and shows how that figure should be interpreted in terms of its stability.

FWCI Table

It’s pretty clear from this analysis that you need to know when it’s time to stop when you are drilling down in SciVal!  Another implication is that there is no sensible justification for quoting FWCI to two let alone three decimal places of precision.  I’ve kept the second decimal place above simply for purposes of demonstration.

I am well aware that the guidance above is based on data from just one institution, and may not travel well. If you would like to replicate this experiment using your own data, I’m happy to share my SPSS Syntax file.  It automates the whole thing, so you just have to load and go off on a short holiday! Just drop me an email.

Ian Rowlands is a Research Information & Intelligence Specialist at King’s College London and a member of the LIS-Bibliometrics committee.

ian.rowlands@kcl.ac.uk

Calling all academics interested in kindness

conferences, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange

Following on from the successful Service Excellence Conference held in April, we are holding a further event to build on the theme of kindness. If you are an academic interested in kindness or undertaking research which is linked to kindness please come along to a follow up event on 7th June 10-3 to share your interests and to explore ways in which we can work across the university to develop the theme of ‘kindness’ further.

 

The event will explore kindness and self-kindness and will include a holistic appreciation of self and others. Alongside practical sessions to explore the concepts of kindness and self-kindness, the day will provide a creative space for academics and professional service staff to come together to explore synergies in research and practice development activities linked to kindness. We hope the event will provide a springboard for future co-creation around kindness across the university.

To book your place, please contact od@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Re-elected to the Board!

Dr John Oliver, from the Advances in Media Management research cluster (FMC/FoM) has been re-elected to the European Media Management Association Board. Following his election at the association’s recent Annual General Assembly in Ghent, Belgium, Dr Oliver will now serve a 3rd term on the board and be responsible for the Doctoral Summer School in 2018.

Academic Career Pathway to Research Funding – new pages

Guidance, PG research, student research

I posted last week a whizzy picture demonstrating the academic career pathway to research funding.  This has now been turned into new pages on the blog for each stage of an academics career in research.  The pages highlight the type of funding that you can aim for, what training and development is available to support this (through the RKEDF), and further resources that will support you in applying for external funding.  As well as the main summary page, there is a page for students, research fellows, senior research fellows, associate professors, and professors.

Have a look at what’s available through each stage of an academics career.  Links to these pages are also available in the Research Lifecycle – Your research strategy section and in the Research Toolkit.

If you have any queries about how to get started with your research strategy then please contact your RKEO Research Facilitator.

 

Nutrition and Dementia care workbook now ebook!

This week is Dementia Awareness Week and the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) is engaging with a number of initiatives to raise awareness of dementia.

In 2016 we launched our nutrition and dementia care workbook, a research informed training tool informed by our project led Professor Jane Murphy with Joanne Holmes, funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing. This has been very well received across health and social care, enabling staff to make quality improvements and impact on the delivery of nutritional care for people living with dementia.

This week we are excited to release an online version of our workbook and will have a much wider reach to support people living with dementia. It is freely available to everyone and can be accessed from our website http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/nutrition-dementia

For more details contact Michelle O’Brien: mobrien@bournemouth.ac.uk

The European Media Management Association Conference

Graham Goode, from the Advances in Media Management (AiMM) research cluster recently presented his doctoral research at the European Media Management Association conference in Ghent, Belgium. Under a conference theme of “collaboration in the value chain”, Graham presented data from a multi-year content analysis of strategic collaborations of UK broadcast, production and distribution organisations between 2010 and 2016. The findings show that equity participation, a form of collaboration, where one partner provides finance and expertise to gain access to the other partner’s capabilities in content, formats, talent, people and production facilities, accounted for a substantial and growing proportion of collaborations over the last three years, replacing acquisitions, as the here-to (since 2010) main form of collaboration.

Biodiversity on Talbot Campus

Knowledge Exchange, Student Engagement

The NUS Green impact Bee Friendly event was held in the fusion building on the 16th May showcasing what BU is researching and implementing for biodiversity on Talbot campus. The event had a strong emphasis on pollinators and as a community we have realised 17 new bee hotels and over 100m2 of wild flowers to improve our homes and campus for a wider diversity of bees.

Top James Appleby and Dr Liz Franklin – Emma and Isatu Placement students from Poole college not in shot Bottom the edible herbs in planters on campus (see Campus Biodiversity Map)

The event showcased the work of the Co-creative Student Environment Research Teams (SERTS) for biodiversity on Talbot campus including: James Appleby that is leading the Bee Zoopla SERT for making better bee homes and raising awareness of solitary bees and the Campus Bulbs SERT planting and monitoring the success of bulbs on campus. For more information see the hyperlinks within.


Top James and bottom the Campus Bulbs team Dr Anita Diaz, Alessandra, Amy, James, Ellie, Cara, Jake, Leon and Damian Evans

During the event there was a great deal of knowledge exchange about campus biodiversity with the University community being made aware of the bird boxes, bat boxes, bee hotels, wildflowers, bulb planting, edible herbs and fruit trees on campus. The handy link below takes you to a PDF of the campus biodiversity map if you missed the event.

Campus Biodiversity Map

Newton Fund latest calls

Funding opportunities, international

The British Council have announced that the latest calls available under the Newton Fund are now open or forthcoming:

 

6 September 2017 12pm BST NEW! MALAYSIA – UK-Malaysia Urban Innovation Challenge (Innovate UK)
APPLICATIONS ON A ROLLING BASIS TURKEY – Fellowships for UK Researchers (British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: CHINA – UK-China Joint Research and Innovation Partnership Fund PhD Placement Programme (British Council)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: INDIA – Bio-technological solutions for reducing industrial waste (BBSRC, EPSRC)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: CHINA – UK-China Agri-Tech (BBSRC)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: INDIA – Ganga Delta – Bay of Bengal Interactions (NERC)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: INDONESIA – Wallacea understanding biodiversity and evolutionary responses to environmental change (NERC)
Forthcoming FORTHCOMING: SOUTH EAST ASIA – Increasing resilience to hydrometeorological hazards (NERC)

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If you are interested in applying to any of these calls then please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer, in the first instance.

The importance of writing a good grant application

Everyone knows how important it is to write a good grant application – if you’re not submitting the best grant application you can, you won’t be in the running to win the money. But how do you write the best application to stand you out from the crowd?

To find out come to the Grants Workshop on 1st June!

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are hosting a Grants Workshop and follow-up Bid Writing Retreat.

This two day event will combine advice and guidance on writing grant applications, and will be delivered by external bid writing experts ThinkWrite.

Day one (Thursday, 1st June 2017) will comprise of a grants workshop which will give participants the opportunity to expand their ideas on available funding sources, and investigate what funders want to achieve when they hand over money. Participants will then develop a strategic approach to writing applications.

Day two (Thursday, 29th June 2017) will consist of a follow-up bid writing retreat, where one-to-one support will be available to develop applications for funding.

All academics and researchers are welcome to attend.  Participants can attend either day, but must have a funding application they plan to submit within 12 months. The application can be to any funder.

Places are limited, so book now to avoid disappointment. For more information and to book your space please see the RKE Development Framework page for this event.

For any other queries please contact Lisa Gale-Andrews, RKEO Research Facilitator.

BU rises 18 places in Guardian University Guide 2018

Bournemouth University has risen 18 places in the Guardian University Guide 2018.The rise – up to 61st in the league table rankings from 79th the previous year – follows similar accolades for the university this year, such as the THE Young University Rankings, where BU also ranks among the top 200 universities in the world.

Professor John Vinney, Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University said, “We are delighted to see a rise in the latest Guardian University Guide, reflection for the work put in by our excellent staff over the past 12 months.

“This accolade, along with other recent rises, really underlines the quality of our teaching, research and links with businesses, all of which come together to offer an excellent student experience at BU.”

In the Guardian University Guide 2018 BU was shown to be fifth in the UK for the value that it adds to its degrees, one measure used to calculate a university’s overall score.

One such way that the university adds value for students is through its placement offer, with BU currently boasting more students on a work placement as a part of their degree than any other university in Great Britain (according to HESA data from 2015).

BU is also celebrating success in other university rankings; BU rose 20 places in the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2017. In the same survey, BU was also rated among the top 20 universities in the UK for its links with industry.

In recent months BU has also risen 20 places in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017.

The Guardian University Guide 2018 can be viewed in full on the Guardian website.

RKEDF – Working with Business Pathway – Influencing and Persuading

Business Engagement, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are hosting a one-day workshop for academics who are interested in working with business audiences.

Held off-site in Bournemouth from 9am-4.30pm on Thursday 22nd June, this workshop aims to focus on developing your personal skills where key learning outcomes are: communication, persuasion, influence and engaging with business.

This workshop is ideal for academics who wish to work with industry on projects such as contract research or KTP.

To find out more, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP and Student Projects) on 01202 961347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk

To book your place, please email od@bournemouth.ac.uk

NIHR – Become a reviewer

How do I become a NIHR reviewer?

  • To comment using your professional experience apply here.
  • To comment from your experience as a patient, carer, or member of the public apply here.

Why review for the NIHR?

Professional development. Reviewing research briefs, proposals and final reports can be used as evidence of continuing professional development (CPD). Where appropriate, NIHR provide written confirmation of reviewing tasks that have been completed for inclusion in your CPD portfolio. For consultant grade medical reviewers, there is the additional attraction that peer review for NIHR is recognised in Clinical Excellence Award submissions.

Insight into the research funding process. By becoming an NIHR reviewer, you can develop a valuable insight into health research need in the NHS and the standards of successful applications for funding. NIHR only fund research of the highest scientific standard, so you can increase your insight into best practice in health research.

Make a difference. As a reviewer you can make a significant contribution to the NHS and public health by shaping research and improving practice. NIHR programmes identify the highest impact questions for UK health, so that you know the research you’re reviewing will make a real difference.

What do reviewers do?

Reviewers help the NIHR at every stage of the research process.

By identifying research topics, ensuring NIHR fund the best applications and helping to shape their open access reports published by the NIHR Journals Library, reviewers play a vital part in maintaining and improving the quality of our research.

NIHR need a wide range of expertise:

  • Academics
  • Clinicians
  • Health service managers and clinicians
  • Practitioners
  • Public health and related professionals
  • Social care sector workers
  • Patients and the Public
  • Anyone whose work has a potential impact on health.

You could play a vital part in maintaining and improving the quality of the research NIHR fund and publish.

NIHR – mental health advisor required for panel

Guidance

The NIHRs  Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme is seeking to appoint a member of the Mental, Psychological and Occupational Health (MPOH) advisory panel, one of the five Topic Identification, Development and Evaluation (TIDE) panels. These panels advise on the research agenda for the HTA programme based on the needs of the NHS. This opportunity is for a commissioner with a mental health background.

The MPOH panel focuses on therapies relating to mental health and psychological disorders at all ages including diagnosis of mental illness or cognitive deficits and learning difficulty, as well as therapies used in any aspect of occupational health.

The term of office is four years starting in May 2017. Travel and expenses will be paid.

If you have any questions about this opportunity please contact Emma Catlin at emma.catlin@nihr.ac.uk.

You will find advice on how to apply in the specification document, as well as a link to the application form and optional equal opportunities form at the top of the advisory group opportunities page.

NERC Science Board – membership vacancies

Guidance

NERC is inviting applications from across the NERC science remit to join its key scientific advisory board, the Science Board (SB). NERC is seeking to recruit for up to three vacancies, to commence appointment in October 2017. SB is the key source of advice to NERC Council on science related issues.

For further information about SB and what is required to be a member, please see the document below.

Member profile and attributes (PDF, 72KB)

Further information and details of how to apply are available at: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/organisation/boards/science/nomination/

The closing date for applications is noon on Friday 16 June 2017.

Interviews will be held in London on Tuesday 25 July 2017.

Photo of the Week: The ORI Gait Lab

The ORI Gait LabThe ORI Gait Lab

Our next instalment of the ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Shayan Bahadori’s image of the ORI Gait lab. The series is a weekly instalment which features an image taken by our fantastic BU staff and students. The photos give a glimpse into some of the fascinating work our researchers have been doing across BU and the wider community.

Shayan is part of the Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) which is made up of a team of BU professionals who carry out world-leading research into Orthopaedics.

The ORI Gait lab is a world-class facility utilising the Motekforce Link GRAIL system that uses an instrumented dual-belt treadmill, Vicon motion-capture system and synchronized virtual reality environment next to three video cameras and electromyography. This is the best available equipment on the market and one of only 23 GRAIL systems in the world. At ORI we use the GRAIL to analyse function and malfunction of the hip and knee joint. Our research aim is to establish a database of normal hip and knee joint functioning, which can be used as a reference to identify abnormalities of joint function in people with hip and knee pathology.

If you’d like find out more about the research or the photo itself then please contact Shayan.

This photo was originally an entry to the 2017 Research Photography Competition. If you have any other questions about the Photo of the Week series or the competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk