ESSENTIAL SCIENCE INDICATORS (ESI)James Cook University Celebrating Research

9 OCTOBER 2009

Steven WerkheiserManager, Customer Education & Training ANZThomson Reuters Healthcare & Science

AGENDA

Learn the basics about ESI

• Who uses it

• What does it do

• What questions does it answer

Search ESI to answer some common questions asked by end users

ESSENTIAL SCIENCE INDICATORS

What is Essential Science Indicators?

• An analytical tool in the Web of Knowledge

• It offers researchers, administrators, deans, and directors measures of worldwide research activity

Performance measures include:

• Productivity, as reflected by number of papers

• Influence, as reflected by number of citations

• Impact, as reflected by number of citations/paper

DATA POINTS IN ESI

Data in ESI comes from ____ years of

citation data in the _______________

Papers are arranged into ____ subject

categories

Only the top percentages of papers are displayed.

– Top ___% of scientists and institutions

– Top ___% of countries and journals

REVIEW

GROUP

SELECT

10

Web of Science

22

1

50

CATEGORIES

Agricultural Science

Biology & Biochemistry

Chemistry

Clinical Medicine

Computer Science

Economics & Business

Engineering

Environment/ Ecology

Geosciences

Immunology

Materials Science

Mathematics

Microbiology

Molecular Biology & Genetics

Multidisciplinary

Neuroscience & Behavior

Pharmacology

Physics

Plant & Animal Science

Psychiatry/Psychology

Social Sciences--general

Space Science

MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNALS

4 PARTS OF ESI

1. Citation rankings

Institution, Scientist, Country, Journal

2. Most cited papers: long-term vs. “hot”

Highly Cited Papers (top 1% per research field)

Hot Papers (top cited in 2 month period)

3. Citation Analysis

Baselines against which to measure your performance

“Research Fronts” to track new trends

4. Editorial commentary

Science Watch

WHAT KINDS OF QUESTIONS CAN ESI HELP ME ANSWER?

Which institutions produce the most

highly-cited chemistry research?

– Is my organization one of them?

– If so, what is our ranking?

QUESTIONS FROM RESEARCHERS

– Which researchers have published the most influential work in immunology over the past 10 years?

– One of my researchers published a paper in 1999 in the field of microbiology. It has been cited 45 times to date; how does this compare to other papers published in this discipline?

– I have just received a grant request and need to evaluate the applicant: Is this researcher highly-cited? Does he/she currently have any “hot” papers?

QUESTIONS FROM PUBLISHERS

– Which countries are interested in particular topics?

– How is a particular paper in our journal doing compared to others?

– Do we have any top cited papers in our journals?

– Will this institution be interested in our journals?

– What is a good citation rate for a paper in a particular topic?

– Which journals are competing with us?

– Which are the top papers in journals?

– What are the hottest topics of research?

– Are citation trends going up or down

ESI FRONT PAGE

COUNTRIES TERRITORIES

FIELD RANKINGS

HIGHLY CITED PAPERS

Highly Cited Papers: What are the top papers in each

category for each year over the past 10 years?

Allows you to identify research that has had long-term,

foundational influence on developments within a

particular field.

HIGHLY CITED PAPERS

HIGHLY CITED PAPERS

Hot Papers: Of papers published in the past 2 years, which are the ones that have been the most highly cited in

the past 2 months?

Allows you to identify papers that are being utilized very

quickly by other researchers upon publication – much

more so than other papers in the same field.

HOW GOOD IS THIS PAPER?

Our Molecular Biology paper written in 2002 has received

339 cites

HIGHLY CITED PAPERS

Baselines: Answers the question – “Is our paper

considered ‘highly cited’ in its field?”

Our Molecular Biology paper written in 2002 has received 339

citations. As our paper has received more than 31.75 cites, it

is clearly above average.

Our 2002 paper in the category of Molecular Biology received 339 cites so we are in the top

1.00%

Field Rankings: How do different topics compare to

each other

RESEARCH FRONTS

Research Front: A group of highly cited papers in a

specialized topic

HIGHLY CITED PAPERS

Commentary: Essays and interviews that give context

to the numerical data

SCIENCE WATCH

Citation rankings, interviews & reports newsletter

SUMMARYCitation Rankings

– Top 1% of Authors & Institutions– Top 50% of Journals & Countries/Territories

Highly Cited Papers– Top 1% of papers per discipline

Hot Papers– Papers that were cited in the last two months

Baselines– Citation statistics in context

Research Fronts– Creates clusters of highly cited articles

Editorial Commentary– Interviews, articles and essays

SUMMARY OF BENEFITS

Rankings

– Use researchers’ acknowledgements (citations) to quantify top research and rank a scientist, institution, country, or journal by influence and impact

– Find the productivity of an institution (number of papers) as well as its influence (number of citations)

Benchmark analysis

– Use citation averages to measure the relative influence of your research against others in the same field

Editorial commentary

– Gain a view of the scientific landscape through essays and articles; offering context and background, not just numbers

Any Questions?