Library Help: Office For Open Research

What is SciVal? 

SciVal is an advanced research analytics tool developed by Elsevier. You can use SciVal to explore various bibliometric indicators for publications indexed in Elsevier’s Scopus database. The indicators in SciVal allow you to: 

• Understand the citation performance of a set of publications 

• Understand the extent of institutional, national or international collaboration 

• Benchmark research with research from other institutions or countries 

• Explore how research has been cited in policy, patents or in the media 

How do I access SciVal? 

To access SciVal you need to register for an account with Elsevier. You must use your University of Manchester email address and credentials. You can use the same account you use for Scopus (KB article) if you already have a Scopus account. Once you have registered, SciVal can be accessed via www.scival.com. 

How do I use SciVal? 

From the home screen, you will see four tabs:  

• Explore 

• Compare 

• Reporting  

• My SciVal 

In both the Explore and Compare tabs, the first action you’ll need to take is to select an entity. This entity will form the basis of any search or analysis that you conduct. An entity can be a university, researcher (or group of researchers), a publication set, a country, a topic or a research Area. You can access more information and guidance about working with entities.  

If you choose to analyse a research area, you can define one yourself, or use one of SciVal’s pre-curated research areas. There is a dedicated research area in SciVal for 16 of the 17 current UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You can also access more information and guidance about research areas.  

The Explore tab is split into several sections: 

• The Bibliometrics section allows you to explore the citation performance of your chosen entity’s publications, including metrics such as the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles. (KB article on citations) 

• You can use the Contribution section to identify the authors or institutions contributing the most to your list of publications. 

• The Research Fields section allows you to delve into the Topics and Subject Areas to which your chosen entity’s publications have been assigned. A topic or topic cluster represents a collection of publications which share a common intellectual interest. You can also use this section to identify the top ‘keyphrases’ from the titles, abstracts and keywords of your entity’s publications. Both the Topics feature and keyphrases allow you to identify strong performing and/or rapidly growing areas of research from your publication set. 

• The Collaboration section shows the percentage of publications which form part of an institutional, national, international or academic-corporate collaboration. 

• Finally, in the Impact section you can explore how publications in your list have been cited in policy, patents and the media. In addition to raw numbers, you can also view where research has been cited within a policy document, which can be useful when writing impact narratives. 

Within the Compare tab, there is a section called ‘Benchmark’. In this section, you can select multiple entities to compare. Comparisons can be run across a broad range of metrics, year ranges and/or subject areas. This enables you to compare researchers, researcher groups or institutions with others; to benchmark progress; and to analyse developments in a field over time. We always recommend caution when using the benchmarking feature. For further information please see our dedicated article on benchmarking which outlines the key factors you will need to consider.  

The analyses that you find in SciVal can be exported for use outside SciVal, or added to report(s) that you can then find in the Reporting tab. You can then save these reports as PDFs. 

Further Resources 

• An Introduction to SciVal, provided by the supplier, Elsevier. 

• Answers to frequently asked questions on using SciVal 

• Guidance on how to use SciVal responsibly, produced by the LIS Bibliometrics community. 

• Elsevier’s Research Metrics Guidebook, which contains guidance on when and how to use the different metrics found in SciVal. You can also click the ‘i’ symbol next to each metric in SciVal to view a definition and advice on when a particular metric can be used. 

• If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the Office for Open Research team.