Research quality and publications

In February 2008, the Commonwealth Government announced a new research quality and evaluation system called Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). The evaluation of research will be partly based on metrics. Some of these metrics are expected to benchmark the quality of journals and other publication outlets in which researchers publish their work.

RMIT University has a strong commitment to improving research performance and outcomes. A key action from the RMIT Business Plan (2008-2010) is “to support increases in the number of publication or other works in high quality journals and related publication outlets”.

Do you know:

whether you are publishing in a quality journal?
how to find out if the journal you publish in has an Impact Factor?
how to find out the relative ranking of a journal within a particular field?
how many times your publications have been cited?
how to track when each of your publications has been cited?
who else is researching in your area and where they are publishing?
who are the leading researchers in your field?

Liaison Librarians

Each School in the University has a designated School Liaison Librarian. Contact your Liaison Librarian to learn how to make the most of the Library’s resources and services. Your Liaison Librarian:

is an expert searcher and a specialist in the literature of your discipline
can guide you through the maze of citations and impact factors
can assist with setting up citation alerts
can work with you to identify quality publishing sources

Further information

RMIT Research and Innovation has a page on Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA).
RMIT University Publications Collection provides information about publication output across the University.
The Library provides information on Staying current with your research, including alerting services, discussion lists and blogs, pre-print and open archives.
Craig, I 2006, ‘The pros and woes of the impact factors’, Blackwell’s Library News, no. 33, p. 5.

Jacso, P 2006, ‘Deflated, inflated, and phantom citation counts’, Online Information Review, vol. 30, pp. 297-309.
Schubert, A, Glänzel, W & Thijs, B 2006, ‘The weight of author self-citations: a fractional approach to self-citation counting’, Scientometrics, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 503-14.

Bibliography

Butler, L 2006, ‘CAVAL Seminar RQF2’, Presented at a CAVAL Seminar, Melbourne, 19 July 2006.

Adapted from the University of South Australia Library.

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