Assessment of scientific output

Teaching activity, in terms of research, is assessed on the basis of its outputs. The ISCTE Regulations on the Assessment of Teaching Staff Performance — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Regulation No. 77/2020 of 31 January) sets out, in Tables 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, the indicators, metrics and weightings to be used in the evaluation of different types of scientific output indexed on the Web of Science and Scopus platforms.

Furthermore, the ISCTE Research Awards Regulations (Order No. 43/2021 of the Rector of ISCTE – Lisbon University Institute) specify the eligibility of articles published in scientific journals that are indexed and ranked in Scopus.

Indicators for evaluating scientific output

Impact factor (Journal Impact Factor – JIF): this is an indicator used to evaluate scientific journals indexed by Web of Science (Core Collection). Its calculation includes scientific articles, review articles and papers published in conference proceedings. Only journals indexed in the Science and Social Sciences indices have an impact factor. It takes into account the last two years of scientific output.

To find out a journal’s Impact Factor, use the Journal Citation Reports.

CiteScore: this is an evaluation indicator for scientific journals indexed by Scopus. Its calculation includes scientific articles, review articles, papers published in conference proceedings, book chapters and data documents. It takes into account the last four years of scientific output.

To find out a journal’s CiteScore, use Scopus (Sources).

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): is an evaluation indicator for scientific journals based on the SCImago Journal & Country Rank. It is an indicator of impact, influence or prestige. It takes into account the citation count over the last three years. It is based on an algorithm that assigns different weights to citations, depending on the prestige of the journal that cited the article.

To find out a journal’s SJR, use the SCImago Journal & Country Rank.

h-index: This is a metric for evaluating an author’s scientific output. It takes into account the highest number of an author’s articles that have received at least that many citations: an h-index of 55 means that the author associated with this index has at least 55 published articles, each with at least 55 citations.

To find out the h-index for an author’s scientific output, use Web of Science, Scopus or even Google Scholar. Note, however, that the results will differ as the database used for the calculation is also different.

 Summary Table of the Main Evaluation Indicators

Percentiles and quartiles

A journal’s percentile corresponds to its position in an ordered list of journals within a given category. A high percentile places the journal amongst those with the highest ratings.

A quartile is obtained by dividing the values in that list into four parts. Quartile 1 corresponds to the set of journals ranked within the top 25 per cent of journals in a given field of knowledge.

This allows for the comparison of journals across different subject areas.

It is common for a journal to be assigned more than one quartile, as the same journal may be indexed in more than one subject area.

Would you like to know which quartile has been assigned to a journal you are interested in? Please send us an email to referencia.biblioteca@iscte-iul.pt.

Alternative metrics

These are indicators that measure the impact of research by quantifying its presence on the web. They have emerged as an alternative to traditional citation-based impact indicators.

To find out more about this topic.