Home Research Guide Beyond UoB

Beyond UoB

As your research interests becomes more specialist and in depth, you may find that you need to look beyond the University's library service to access the resources you need.

The University of Bedfordshire's Document Supply (inter-library loans) service provides resources which are neither in stock nor held digitally in the University of Bedfordshire library. The service deals with requests for items which can be obtained from other libraries, including the British Library. Simply fill in a form to request an item.  Full details about the Document Supply here.

The SCONUL Access scheme allows you to borrow or use books and journals at other libraries which belong to the scheme. As a University of Bedfordshire student or member of staff, you can use this scheme for free. The scheme covers most university libraries in the UK and Ireland, including many libraries in London, such as University College London (UCL), SOAS, and London School of Economics (LSE).

The British Library is one of six legal deposit libraries in the UK. This means that it collects one copy of everything published in the UK. It has well over 150 million items, with 3 million items added every year.

The British Library is next door to Kings Cross St Pancras train station in London. You can join the library for free and request to view items in advance. Remember to check how to join the library in advance of your visit.

You may wish to identify and visit a library which contains specialist information in your research area, for example:The National Aerospace Library, or the Wellcome Collection.

You could also consider joining your local public library, for example Luton Central Library or Bedford Central Library. Public libraries are free to join and will have a variety of print and digital holdings for you to explore.

An increasing amount of research is being made freely available online, via Open Access initiatives. See the Open Access section of this guide for more information.

Why publish?
  • Publishing regularly is an essential part of an academic career
  • Helps to create new knowledge
  • Enhances the reputation of the University
  • Creates prestige for the academic and can improve future recruitment and career progression
  • Essential requirement from grants and funding
  • Required for REF submissions​
Where to publish?
Where NOT to publish?

Identify predatory or bogus journals and publishers

  • Risks
  • Red flags

Useful guidance and sources

Web of Science Master Journal List 

The WoS Master Journal List helps to find the right journal as it searches across multiple indices hosted by the Web of Science platform.

  • Go to Master Journal List
  • You will need to create an account to use the tools
  • Click on Create Free Account on the top left of the screen
  • Then sign in using the login option
  • Use the Match Manuscript link to find the most related journal for your manuscript.

How to find the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) in the WoS Master Journal List:

  • Go to Master Journal List
  • Search for a journal by journal title, ISSN or keyword and click on View Profile Page in the search results list
  • Click on Journal Citation Report* (JCR) to access the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) from the menu
    • (*UoB does not subscribe to JCR)
  • JCI is a measure of the average CNCI of citable items published by a journal over a recent 3 year period.
 Scopus CiteScore
  • Scopus have devised an alternative algorithm to the impact factor, called CiteScore
  • Login to Scopus with your UoB credentials
  • Click on Sources from the navigation bar
  • Select a subject area from the drop down menu
  • CiteScore 2024 is based on the number of citations received in 2021-2024 to peer-reviewed document types (articles, reviews, conference papers, data papers and book chapters)  and divides this by the number of publications published in 2021-2024.

This guide provides an overview of the bibliometrics available.

What are metrics?
  • A quantitative snapshot (i.e. indicator) of how research outputs perform
  • A research output could include journal articles, books, an exhibition or software (anything that disseminates research).  Most metrics focus on journal articles.
  • Can be individual or entire output from school/university
  • Many different metrics available so chose the most appropriate
  • Responsible metrics should demonstrate transparency, appropriateness, equality, reproducibility and continual reassessment

These quantitative metrics include citation counts, impact factors, h-index and altmetrics and are used to gauge influence and assess impact.

Types of metrics

Traditional metrics are often based on citations. Citations occur when someone acknowledges (cites) another person(s) work in their publication and citation metrics count the number of times publications have been cited by others within a database.

Article metrics:

  • Citation counts measure the aggregate number of citations that a research output has received. 
  • Useful in highlighting the influence of the research but can be distorted by age, field of research, negative citations etc.
  • Available in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar
  • Journal Impact Factor measure the average number of citations received in the last year to articles published in the previous two years
  • Scores could be misleading as it averages out differences between individual papers so one highly cited paper could push the average up
  • e.g. an impact factor of 2.5 means that on average an article has been cited 2.5 times.

Author metrics

  • measures both an author's productivity (number of publications) and research impact (citation count).
  • The h-index is the most common and is available on Scopus
  • e.g. a researcher with an h-index of 20 has had 20 of their papers cited at least 20 times.

Journal metrics

  • measures the average number of citations to articles published in a journal within a specific time period

Normalised metrics

  • Indicators that have been adjusted to compare like for like
  • Category Normalised Citation Impact (CNCI)  e.g. Incites in Web of Science (not available at UoB) and Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) in Scopus
  • Percentile groups (eg. discipline) identifies the share or papers in top 1%/top 10% etc. based mainly on citation counts
Limitations
  • Not all research outputs will be indexed
    • Typically journal articles and some books may be indexed
    • STEM journals are more likely to be indexed than Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
    • Smaller publisher may not index their journals
    • It can take up to 6 months from publication for articles to be indexed
  • Citations take a long time to accrue, favouring older papers over new
  • Lack of context
    • there is no way of knowing if citations are positive or negative
    • volume of citations vary across disciplines
  • Researchers may use a flawed metric such as the h-index as a gauge of quality and not a true reflection of contribution
  • Researchers may use metrics incorrectly or use the wrong type of metric for the assessment they are making: for example, using a journal metric to infer the quality onto their article
  • The key to using metrics in an assessment of people is to be consistent and fair.  In some subjects 15 citations is very high whereas in others it is more typical.
  • Researchers are ultimately more than just their scholarly output so you should never base decisions solely  on metrics.

Altmetrics (Alternative metrics)

Altmetrics try to measure reach and impact of research and are usually generated from online interactions.  

They include:

  • tweets, mentions, shares or links
  • downloads, clicks or views
  • saves, bookmarks, favourites, likes
  • mainstream media mentions
  • reviews, comments, ratings or recommendations
  • adaptations or derivative works
  • readers, subscribers, watchers of followers

Examples include:

Back to Research Guide Home

 

Library on social media

Library blogs

Facebook

Instagram