The SciVal Platform draws information from the Scopus database, the largest abstract and citation database. It uses high performance computing to provide a fast and flexible platform. SciVal allows users to evaluate the research performance of over 4,600 institutions and 220 countries worldwide using over 15 metrics. It also enables users to create custom groups for analysis. SciVal currently has 3 modules for overviewing, benchmarking and analyzing collaborations.

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Alexander van Servellen
Solution Consultant, Elsevier
SciVal Training
UKM April 23, 2014
a.vanservellen@elsevier.com

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The SciVal Platform
• Information in SciVal is drawn from the Scopus dataset. Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of
peer-reviewed literature including over 21,000 journals from 5000 publishers. Scopus has been used as the data-
source for numerous research evaluations, including those done for the governments of the UK, Australia, and
Singapore.
• HPCC super-computing technology makes for a very fast, flexible and pleasant to use solution.
• SciVal makes use of over 15 high quality metrics to help you evaluate research performance
• In addition to the 4,600 institutions and 220 countries, SciVal allows you to create your own research entities, by for
example using keywords, or by grouping: journals, journal categories, countries, institutions, authors etc.
• SciVal currently makes use of three modules: Overview, Benchmarking and Collaboration
Elsevier’s new generation of SciVal offers quick, easy access to the research
performance of 4,600 research institutions and 200 countries and territories
worldwide. A ready-to-use solution with unparalleled power and flexibility.
www.scival.com

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SciVal Facts
Evaluate and benchmark any desired research institution, country, researcher groupings
or research topic
- Access to pre-defined 4600+ institutions, 220 countries and territories
- Ability to create any desired grouping(s) including research topics, researchers, publications etc.
Test “what if” scenarios using self-defined research groups
- Create virtual teams using real-life researchers
- Create newly emerging research area or niche field that cannot be represented by journal based
subject classifications
- Create your own publication sets for grant applications
SciVal provides access to the most recent data to allow users to track and monitor
progress and make timely decision
- Weekly data update from Scopus
- All metrics calculated on weekly basis
- Publication data from 1996 to present
No configuration required to use SciVal. Just access www.scival.com and you can start
viewing your institution’s research performance – right now
- Access to pre-defined entities including institutions and countries across the world
- No need to configure or validate data, it’s all done for you
- Access is by username password

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Registering & Login to SciVal
• Go to www.SciVal.com
You can use you
existing Elsevier login
if you have one
(Scopus.com login for
example)
Create a login if you
don’t already have
one

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Who uses SciVal?
Provosts and vice chancellors: to inform strategic planning; analyze and
track research performance; create management-level reports; understand
the institution’s research strengths; benchmark; and increase funding
application and success rates.
Research administrators and research development professionals: to
connect researchers; accelerate institutional and cross-institutional
collaboration; support and win large grants; find the right opportunities and
assemble the right teams, demonstrate researchers’ expertise and connect
them with one another.
Department heads and research managers: to retain and recruit
researchers; gain an objective view of team performance; benchmark; win
large grants; and maintain accountability.
Researchers: to raise their visibility and highlight their own achievements;
expand their networking; locate collaborators and mentors; and find
appropriate funding opportunities.

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Who uses SciVal?
Librarians: to deepen their understanding of research topics and sources,
enabling them to better support faculty and students.
Communication offices: to stay current on core research activities;
publicize researchers, their work and accomplishments; and channel media
requests to appropriate subject experts.
Technology transfer offices: to promote research excellence to industry
partners; identify faculty who can support corporate initiatives; and match
research expertise with industry needs.
Students: to find mentors and study their expertise; and identify new
journals and authors to follow.
Policymakers: to become familiar with the nation’s scientific landscape and
its strengths; and channel research investments toward national issues.

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Learning how to use SciVal
• SciVal is not difficult to use, but like
most things, it take a bit of practice.
• We hope you will take some time to
explore SciVal, so you can find
insights that are important to you,
your team, department and
institution.
• Keep in mind that you can view any
institution or country world-wide,
any researcher, create teams of
researchers, custom create
research areas. SciVal is flexible!
• If you have questions, please email
me.

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SciVal currently has 3 Modules
• You can navigate from one module to the next, using the menu at the top of the interface.
• Each module provides a different view of the same data.

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Overview Module
Purpose
• High level, report style view of research output of a country, institution, team of
researchers, or self-created research area
• Identify key strengths and areas of high potential and growth
• Analyze multidisciplinary research competencies
• Identify top collaboration partners
Exercise:
• Analyze metrics to determine in which
subjects your institution shows ‘research
excellence’ (here you should look at
publication volume & field-weighted
citation impact.
• Identify the “top” authors of your
institution.

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Benchmarking Module
Purpose:
• Flexible analysis; direct comparisons between countries, institutions,
researchers, teams, self-created research areas etc.
• Identification of trends anywhere between 1996 and present
• Department level benchmarking
• Research area benchmarking
Exercise:
• Compare publication output of your institution with selected peer
institutions. Choose the subject area(s) you are most interested in and
repeat.
• Compare the Field-weighted citation impact of your institution with
selected peer institutions. Choose the subject area(s) you are most
interested in and repeat. Select relevant countries or regions as
benchmarks.

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Collaboration Module
Purpose
• Understand the collaboration of any institution world-wide.
• Which collaborations produce the highest impact articles?
• Who is a good potential collaboration partner for me?
Exercise:
• Who is your top collaboration partner in purely in terms of volume?
• Which collaborations produced the articles with the highest impact
in your subject area of interest?
• Which co-authorships produced the highest cited papers?

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Creating Research Areas
• You can create a research area by creating keywords searches which
search the title and abstracts of all documents in Scopus, or by grouping:
- institutions,
- countries,
- journal categories,
- Journals
- competencies
- Maximum of 100,000 documents limitation
• Research Areas can be analyzed in all three modules!!
• Exercise: Create a research area using keywords, which represents a very
specific topic which you are interested in. Hint: make the topic something
very specific. Also be sure to view the search tips.

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Team or Department Level analysis
• SciVal supports creation of researchers,
and easy grouping of researchers into
teams.
• Teams can be analyzed in the overview
and benchmarking modules.
• This allows scenario testing, such as “what
would our team performance look like if we
hired a particular professor”
• Exercise: create several researchers in
SciVal and groups them in to teams
The departments you see here represent
the publications of all the researchers
active in that department. This structure is
based on
http://www.experts.scival.com/ukm/

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Metrics in SciVal
Please download the Metrics Guide Book at:
http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/research-intelligence/resource-
library/resources/download/scival-metrics-guidebook

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www.elsevier.com/research-intelligence
Thank you very much
Questions? Email me at
a.vanservellen@elsevier.com