Elsevier Integrates New Collaboration Analysis Capabilities Into SciVal Strata to Further Enhance Research Evaluation

AMSTERDAM, July 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced two new collaboration analyses capabilities available within SciVal Strata (http://www.info.scival.com/strata), a web-based tool focused on the evaluation of research performance. SciVal Strata offers researchers and research administrators the flexibility to construct relevant contextual data to benchmark research teams or individual researchers, using a range of indicators based on Elsevier's Scopus data.

The collaboration analysis capabilities add a novel dimension to SciVal Strata, enabling users to assess collaboration between researchers. The new capabilities are:

• Geographical Collaboration Network: Enables research administrators and researchers to view the locations by region and country where a researcher or research team is or has collaborative links. Furthermore, it allows users to observe activity trends over time for any specific region or country.
• Author Network: Allows users to view the complete team in which researchers or research teams collaborated. Moreover, it indicates how often those co-authors have published with that individual or team displaying their prestige according to the h- or g-Indices, measures that represent a combination of productivity and citation impact.

"By empowering academic and governmental research advisors and researchers to assess collaboration, SciVal Strata now provides a multidimensional way to evaluate distinguished researchers and early career researchers alike," said Niels Weertman, Vice President of Product Management, Scopus and SciVal. "Furthermore, this new approach will support strategic decisions including recruitment and partnerships, ultimately improving research outcomes."  

For an early career researcher who has published few articles and has not yet gained a critical mass of citation counts (an indicator for traditional performance analysis), geographical collaboration and prestigious co-authors may indicate that the researcher is viewed positively in the field and able to attract established scientists for collaboration - all qualifications for potential recruitment or funding applications. By providing this novel approach to evaluating research performance, SciVal Strata continues to enable researchers and research administrators to identify the strengths of research teams and individual researchers most relevant to their field of expertise, topics of interest or career stage.

About the Elsevier SciVal^® Suite

Elsevier's SciVal suite (http://www.info.scival.com) of services supports academic and government leadership in evaluating, establishing and executing research strategies that optimize the performance of existing assets and maximize investments to enhance near and long-term productivity. SciVal tools leverage Scopus® data, Elsevier's trusted source of bibliometric data, to offer innovative yet authoritative solutions. Current suite offerings include: SciVal Spotlight™, a strategic tool that generates unique institutional and country maps of existing and emerging strengths based on an interdisciplinary perspective of current performance; SciVal Funding™, an online solution that provides targeted recommendations on grants to pursue based on pre-populated research profiles and historical awards; SciVal Strata, a web-based research performance tool that offers users the flexibility to construct relevant contextual data to evaluate research teams or individual researchers, using a range of indicators based on Scopus data; SciVal Experts, a semantic technology-based application that enables researchers to identify and locate sources of expertise at an individual or departmental level within and across institutions.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

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