Enhancing post-publication impact of scientific work

1. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
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Dealing with the publication
process – Measuring Post-
publication Impact
Dr. Melanie Paschke, paschkme@ethz.ch
Managing Director Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, ETH Zurich
Trainer in advanced transferable skills
16.06.2014, University of Zurich

2. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
Background in:
• Diploma 1997 – Ecology; PhD 2001 – Environmental Sciences; Senior
Educator and curriculum development at University of Zurich and ETH
Zurich since 2001, Managing Director Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
since 2008
• Educator in more than 30 training workshops in e.g. the areas of
developing a research budget, dealing with the publication process,
scientific writing, responsible conduct in research, grant proposal writing
and supervision of several summer schools, retreats and mentoring
events
• 3 textbooks finished, 2 currently in progress
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3. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
Topics covered
• Measures fro post-publication impact – current trends
• Improving the quality of the publication record from PhD to group leader
position
• Improving the citation rate
• Social academic networks
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Post-Publication Impact?

5. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
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Current Practice of Measuring Researcher’s Publication
Impact
• Number of Publications as first or last author
• Number of Publications in high-impact journals

6. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
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Recent policies that will have an impact on the current
publication practices
DORA Declaration (2012): Declaration on Research
Assessment. Assessment of research based on
quality and not only on bibliometric measurement
• Now signed by 517 institutional signatories
including many influential publishers and funding
organisations for example: Swiss National
Foundation, Human Frontiers Program, EMBO

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Recent guidelines for proposal submission
For example from Ambizione, Ambizione-PROSPER /
SCORE and Ambizione-Energy guidelines, 2015:
– Regarding the publication list , please separate your publications
resulting from your PhD (or prior) and from your postdoctoral time into
two sections and highlight the 5 most important. For all publications
listed from your postdoctoral time, please give a very short comment
on your contribution; in particular for publications with several authors,
where the applicant is not first or last author, or for disciplines where
the authors are in alphabetical order.

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Recent guidelines for proposal submission
For example from Human Frontiers Research Program guidelines,
2015:
– HFSP is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration of Research
Assessment (DORA) which we consider to be an incentive to evaluate
research proposals on the basis of their content and not solely by the
criterion of Journal Impact Factors (JIF). Reviewers at all stages of the
HFSP grant application process are advised that they should
consider the quality of the research published and/or proposed in an
application. While productivity may be an important factor, the
assessment will be based on the content of articles and not the JIF.
Furthermore HFSP reviewers are asked to consider the influence of
candidates’ publications in advancing knowledge in a given field (or
throughout biology).

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Predictions about near-future changes in the
measuring of quality in researcher’s publication
record
• Impact measurement of publication will change in the near
future, e.g. less amount and more quality
• Focus on most-influential publication
• Independence in the publications at early stages as a
more and more important criteria
• However, bibliometric measurements will not be dismissed
but used more responsible e.g. life time citation index

10. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
http://www.embo.org/documents/WIS_report_2007_persistent_problem.pdf
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A difference in the publication strategy?
Why are so few women in higher research positions?
• EMBO conducted a study on 3 stages: end of PhD, Post Doc, group leader
• Evaluators select more male than female applications even if documents are
without any hint about the gender of applicants:
• Publication record of woman includes less publications at all stages
• At post-doc stage the impact factor and citation rate is significantly lower for women
in their first-/last-authored publications, later on (e.g. group leader stage) these
differences in the publication record dissappear
• Based on N= 710 applicants
• Women especially at post-doctoral stage more often follow partner, devote more
time to family care or get involved in teaching duties, therefore, might spent less
time on publications especially in the postdoctoral years
Ledin, Bornmann, Gannon and Wallon (2007)

11. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
Developing an publication strategy
• Plan your writing time and enough of it
• Select journals for publishing early in the
publication process
• Clarify collaboration and authorship early

12. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
What do we want to see on your CV at the end of the
PhD, during your first Post Doc, at the end of your
postdoctoral commitments?

13. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
End of the PhD
At least one publication in an international peer-
reviewed journal as single author, first author or
joint single author
(Human Frontiers Research Program guidelines,
2015)
Note: contribution clearly stated or published under a
contributorship model

14. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
Transformation to group leader status* and beyond**
• Indepencece in producing influential publications*
• Review papers*
• Prestigious grants granted to you*
• Organiser of prestigious conferences*
• Books, book chapters**
• Awards**
• Patents built on a certain publications**
• Social impact**:
• Implementation of scientific results at the science-
policy interface, e.g. invitation to join policy networks,
evidence-based advise to policies
• Influential Policy Papers

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Backward Modeling for Optimal Setting
Royal Society (2010)
Mentoring Settings at the PSC, Paschke

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Measurement of Impact – CITATION RATE and LIFE TIME
CITATIONS AS THE MOST PURE MEASUREMENTS?
• Citation Rate /
• Life Time Citations
Total Articles in Publication List: 80
Articles With Citation Data: 74
Sum of the Times Cited: 12235
Average Citations per Article: 165.34
h-index: 42
Last Updated: 05/05/2015 11:45 GMT
NN
Source: Web of Science

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How to improve your citation rate – content based
• High journal impact factor will increase the probability of
getting cited (Vanclay 2013)
• Team authored publications get more citations (Wuchty,
Jones and Uzzi 2007)
• Share detailed research data (Piwowar, Day & Fridsma
2007)
• Use more references (Webster, Jonason & Schember
2010)
• Write a review paper (Taylor and Francis Group 2012)
• Avoid to select a question type of title (Jamali & Nikzad
2011)
Summary in Ebrahim et al 2013
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2344585

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Post-publication marketing
• An active marketing of all publications of a researcher increases visibility and
citation rate:
• Self archive, open access publication and additional deposition in well-
known open-access repositories (institutional!)
• Keep a profile with your publications in academic social networking sites:
ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley, LinkedIn (business oriented)
• Include and maintain correct metadata (increases retrieval by search
engines) for all your entries
• Share useful content from your publications via figshare, slideshare
• Open ORCID or ResearchID with all your publications
• Use the media offices of your institution to highlight your high-impact
publications
• Create a presence in twitter or the blogosphere to highlight your work (much
work!)
• Have your most recent publications in your e-mail signature

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Research Gate (https://www.researchgate.net)
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Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/)
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Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com/)
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22. Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center
ORCID (http://orcid.org/)
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Post-publication marketing
• The most important thing to do is to work in a sub-field that is
growing. If the community is losing interest in a research topic, you
should drop it also. I reckon that all other things being equal, the
expected number of citations a paper picks up is exponential in the
growth rate of the research field, a theory that has the nice feature
that expected citations is non-negative. Note: it is not important that
the sub-field be big; it must just be growing.
• …
Paul Goldberg, 2007
http://paulwgoldberg.blogspot.ch/2007/12/pursuit-of-citations.html