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Back to all metricsSubject Area Count can be generated using either the Main Categories or Sub-categories. The maximum value of this metric is 27 when using Scopus Main Categories, and 334 when using Scopus Sub-categories. Publications can be assigned to a classification system in two ways:
- “Journal-driven” assignment assumes that every publication within a journal fits within the same discipline(s) as the journal’s scope. Each publication automatically adopts the subject classifications that are assigned to the journal. This method of assignment is suitable for journals that are focused in a core field, and do not tend to include publications that are also a relevant to other fields
- “Publication-driven” assignment assumes that publications within a journal may have additional or different relevance to fields outside the core focus of the journal’s scope. Publication-driven assignment offers the benefit of being able to assign individual publications from a journal separately to their relevant classifications. This is important for publications in multi-disciplinary journals
Subject Area Count uses “publication-driven” assignment, and a publication can be allocated to more than one category.
Subject Area Count is a:
- Disciplinarily metric
- “Power Metric”
- Compare smaller entities, such as Groups of Researchers and Groups of Publication Sets, where differences in the disciplinary portfolio are most likely to be evident
- Provide impressive figures to showcase the performance of a relatively large entity, when this metric is likely to give high numbers
- Benchmark the diversity of the disciplinary portfolios of related entities, such as collaboration networks funded by the same type of grant from a given funder
- Provide evidence of cross-disciplinarily by indicating the appeal of an entity’s output to readers in diverse disciplines
- Investigate differences in activity at the early stages of a new strategy when publications are just starting to appear, or between early-career researchers
- Look at publishing activity in a way that is difficult to manipulate
- Comparing large entities, such as Institutions and Groups of Institutions, which will likely publish in such a large and stable journal portfolio that it will approach the maximum extent of the Scopus database so that differences may not be visible. Users are advised to narrow their focus to a slice of a large entity when using this metric, such as by applying the Research Area filter.
- Benchmarking the productivity of entities of obviously different sizes, such as departments of 150 academics with departments of 30 academics:
- Differences in the value of this “Power Metric” when comparing such entities will probably reflect distinct entity sizes rather than differences in the diversity of their publication portfolios.
- Users are advised to limit the use of this metric to similar entities, or to use size-normalized metrics such as Collaboration.
- Benchmarking the productivity of entities with distinct disciplinary profiles, when academics in distinct fields may have a different sized range of journals available for submission:
- Differences in Subject Area Count, in these cases, may well reflect distinct disciplinary characteristics rather than provide reliable information about differences in publication portfolios.
- It is not advisable to use this metric to compare entities in distinct disciplines without accounting for these differences.
- When comparing entities made up of a mixture of disciplines, such as an Institution or a Country, users are advised to apply the Research Area filter to focus on one field that is common between all the entities, or to use field-normalized metrics such as Field-Weighted Citation Impact which will take this into account.
- Understanding the productivity of small entities for which there may be gaps within the Scopus coverage
- A single missing publication from a small data set may have a significant negative impact on the apparent breadth of a publication portfolio.
- The only way to account for this is to be vigilant. Consider also limiting the use of Subject Area Count to comparing slightly larger data sets in which potential gaps in the database coverage likely have a similar effect on all entities and do not invalidate the comparison.
- Scopus Source Title Countopens in new tab/window, which highlights the disciplinary portfolio of an entity, and is a complement to Subject Area Count
- The set of all other “Power Metrics” whose value tends to increase as the entity becomes bigger: Scholarly Output, Scopus Source Title Count, Citation Count, Cited Publications (“Total value”), Number of Citing Countries, Collaboration (“Total value”), Academic-Corporate Collaboration (“Total value”), Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles (“Total value”), Publications in Top Journal Percentiles (“Total value”), and h-indices
- The set of all other “time-independent metrics”, which provide useful, reliable information immediately upon publication and do not rely on the passing of time for useful data to accumulate: Scholarly Output, Scopus Source Title Count, Collaboration, Academic-Corporate Collaboration, and Publications in Top Journal Percentiles
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