Entities
In addition to this brief description there is an E-Tutorial: SciVal Übersicht über die Entitäten
Contents of the brief description
The following brief description explains how to use the entities. Entities are objects or groups of objects that can be identified individually. You can find them within the modules "Overview", "Benchmarking", "Collaboration" and "Trends".
Navigation area of SciVal in the "Overview" module
Within the module "Overview", you can find the entities devided in 7 areas on the left handside:
- Institutions and Groups
- Researchers and Groups
- Publications Sets
- Countries, Regions and Groups
- Topics and Topic Cluster
- Research Areas
- Scopus Sources
Each of the four SciVal modules offers a different selection of these entities for further usage. To get an overview, in which modules which entities can be used, you can move the cursor over each entity in the elevant module to see the name of the entity and its status of activation in the selected module.
Institutions and Groups
You can add any number of institutions by using the search-function to the right of the enity-list. The results are listed below the search slot. Your home institution is written in bold. To analyze other institutions, like TU München, you can type the place or parts of the name in german or english into the search slot and SciVal will give you a list of suggestions, where you can choose the favored one. You can repeat this process to select all desired institutions.
If the list of institutions becomes to big, the button "Clean this section" will delete this temporary list. The elements will be deleted from the list, but not permanently erased.
It can be helpful to define favorites, which can by chosen by clicking the star on the right of the item or be removed from the selected favorites by clicking the icon again.
Existing groups
It is also possible to define a group of institutions for later usage or to modify existing ones. Via "Add new" and further "Define a new Group of Institutions", a new window opens, where you should check first if the particular group already exists.
In the first example, the german universities of excellence are selected. For this purpose, the word "Excellence" is typed into the search slot. A list of suggestions with the entry "German Universities of Excellence" appears.
The 14 participating universities can be viewed by clicking the number and via "Select this group" adopted into the editing list.
Not existing groups
If a group that should be analyzed is not predefined, it is possible to use "Define a new Group" and search for the desired institution, which can be placed via "Drag and Drop" in the chosen list.
With clicking the button "Next step", the group can be named. This name should be explicit and can be saved via "Save and finish".
SciVal contacts you via e-mail, as soon as the new entity is created by the system and available from your local PC.
Created Groups in MySciVal
The module "MySciVal" lists the created groups and gives the opportunity to edit or delete them by using the buttons in the right. Those created entities can be shared with other registered users via "Share this entity with other SciVal users".
Similar procedures are offered for groups of persons or countries. Thus it is quickly possible to group for example the members of a specific research institute or to analyze the member states of the D-A-CH union (german speaking region: Germany – Austria – Switzerland).
Here again: the module MySciVal shows the defined groups, where they can be deleted, edited or shared.
Entities of the collaboration and trends modules
In the module "Collaboration" the available entities are "Institutions and Groups", "Researcher and Groups" and "Countries, Regions and Groups", whereas the module "Trends" covers "Publication Sets", "Topics and Clusters" and "Research Areas".
Publication Sets
There are two options to create a "Publication Set":
Option 1
For the first option, you need to switch to Scopus first.
The appropriate query can be typed in by using the search slot on the front page or within the "Advanced document Search". The relevant publications can be selected out of the list of results and exported with an unique name via "SciVal export".
If the button right to "All" is not named "SciVal export", you can change the export-format, e. g. "RIS" into "Scival export".
Here it shows the publication set inside the "Trends"-module, where you can use it for further processing.
Via "Save and finish", the "Publication Set" will be closed and converted to SciVal.
Attention:
Due to the temporal delay, it is possible that not als publications from Scopus are already available in SciVal.
Option 2
The second option uses the import-function within SciVal. Via "Add new" and "Import a Publication Set" you can import publication sets containing publications with explicit identifiers like DOIs, PMIDs or EIDs.
Attention:
Only one identifier per line is allowed and the size is limited to 50.000 lines. "Publication Sets" are basically static lists, but the number of citations can increase over time.
SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals
A very important group of entities is included in the "Research Areas", namely the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Those are 17 goals for a sustainable development, which were defined by the United Nations as political objective and shall serve an assurance of a sustainable development on a economic, social and ecologic level. The entities of the "Research Areas" are dynamic and therefore new content is received, which fits to the topics or the keywords.
Creating the Research Areas
You can create your own research areas by using "Define a new Research Area" and opening the definition mask.
Inside the window "Create definition" you can add specific keywords.
Via "Refine definition" you can refine it by "Subject Areas", "Scopus sources", "Institutions", "Countries/Regions" or "Organization types".
The button "Limit to" applies the selected filters. The option "Exclude" is identical to an "And not"-connection and means, that the selected objects are excluded from the generated "Research Area".
Refine and save "Research Areas"
The query is shown on the right handside and in the lower area you can see the current results.
Attention:
Topics up to 5.000 publications are calculated directly, everything beyond that can take some hours.
Another tip:
To keep the overview, which entities are created personally and which ones are predefined, an explicit naming is strongly recommended. To keep it easy it is helpful to begin the name with "MySciVal" and continue with a content-related term and the date of creation.