1. Professor Phyllis Tharenou Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Track Record/ROPE: Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence Calculates 40% of score in Discovery, 30% in DECRA
Professor Phyllis Tharenou
Executive Dean
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
30 January 2012

2. Career & opportunities for research in last 5 years
DISCOVERY (5 questions)
To help assessors of ECRs and women, esp. in early career (≤ years from PhD), to assess track record taking into account research opportunity and career interruptions
Career interruptions for childbirth, carer’s responsibility, misadventure, or debilitating illness; To explain a gap in your track record; Give an end point; Do not list ongoing conditions eg heavy teaching load or admin.
DECRA (2 questions)
Research opportunities within your employment conditions
e.g. teaching or administration load, part-time status, non-research employment or unemployment
Any other circumstances that may have affected the time you have had to conduct and publish research relevant to assessment

3. Typing Your Publications
Q2 Pubs Last 5 years (1 Jan 2007) and Q3 Best 10 Pubs
Less possible in DECRA but still try
Example for a Journal Article
Gere, R How to get a good ROPE score. Journal of Applied Assessment, 15, 1-2. WoS 5-year Impact factor 3.6, IF rank in Management category 10/77, Scopus cites 32; WoS average cites per paper worldwide for Management = 3.
Includes publicly obtainable, brief measures of quality if can:
Web of Science Ranks of Impact Factors (e.g. 4/69), IFs (eg 2.4)
Journal ranks if available (eg WoS IF ranks, ERA, others)
No. citations (Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar eg 30)
Benchmarking eg average cites per paper in your discipline
typed on same line (as no separate space is given).

4. Benchmarking by Cites/Paper
Example from the Web of Science ISI:
Give no. of citations per paper for your discipline E.G.
“World” average from WoS is 2 cites/paper for subject category of Management and 3 for Psychology,
Then compare with your no. of cites/paper from WoS ISI
Web of Science (not include above information)
Also other databases that calculate equivalent of impact factors and their ranks. EG:
scimagojr.com – based on Scopus

5. Typing Publications For a Book or Book Chapter
Following on from reference:
Give any published reviews eg in a journal or magazine
Gere, R Review of Book Title, Personnel Psychology, 5, 1-2.
Give citations eg from Scopus, Web of Science, Googlescholar
State quality of the book press/publisher
Top book publishers in Social Behavioural and Economic Sciences:
Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Academic Press, Chicago University Press, Columbia University Press, Cornell University Press, Harvard University Press, MIT Press, Princeton University Press, Routledge, Sage
Other publishers at next level down, still very good

6. Benchmarking Citations for Books
Academic Discipline
No. of ISI citations per book
No. of Googlescholar citations per book
Business 66
200
Computer Scientist
538
2599
Education
132
797
Political Scientist 62
215
Media studies
110
Linguist 78
518
From Harzing, A. W. ( ). The publish or perish book. Melbourne: Tarma Software Research Pty Ltd.
Some measures also corrected for years since first publication or since PhD.

7. Discovery Projects: Avoid for 10 Career Best Publications
Don’t select if you can (Insert later in Rope for Q4 on your impact):
Textbooks
Working papers
Reports, Government publications
Conference presentations or papers or published abstracts
Avoid if you can (can still go in Pubs for Last 5 Years)
Books in lesser or unknown presses
Book chapters unless can show high quality objectively
Chapters in own edited book
Lowly ranked journals by Impact Factor or other rank
Australian journals of low rank
Publications “in press”/“forthcoming” unless in a fantastic outlet

8. Discovery Projects:
30 WORDs explaining & justifying impact or significance of each pub’n
The substantive argument
Why content of this publication is recognized by other scholars as having advanced knowledge in the research field
Objective, publicly available evidence justifying quality of the outlet or of this particular publication eg
No. of citations for this pub. (Scopus, WoS, googlescholar)
Benchmarking eg no. of cites for this pub. vs average for your field
Impact factor rank for journal, other published journal ranks
typed straight on at the end of publication to not use the 30 words
Reference for published book review (eg Gere, 2010, JAP, 5, 1-2)
Awards/prizes (give authors in order on publication, year awarded, name of prize, organization that awarded it)

9. Discovery Projects: Most significant contributions to research field of this Proposal
Link your specific past research and achievements to the specific field and topic of this proposal:
(a) To show your expertise to carry it out and to advance this field from your past performance/outputs, &
(b) At the same time, give your level of past performance in this field
Give specific, publicly obtainable measures of quality in this field or anything related (eg the methodology you will use) to show you have advanced knowledge, have done it well, and thus can do it again
Start with the specific achievements you are most well known for and for which you can give specific objective evidence, especially where you show top performance

10. DECRA
Your contributions to the research field and evidence of your performance which demonstrate your capacity to undertake the proposed research (1 page maximum).
For example: PhD research and related publications and presentations, subsequent contributions where applicable, conference organisation and learned societies’ membership.

11. DP. Further evidence for research outputs and contributions to field over last 10 years (1 Jan 2002)
(a) Research outputs other than publications eg
Consultancies, patents and policy advice, competitive grants & other research support, major exhibitions, compositions or performances, other professional activities, etc.
(b) Give quality/impact of all your research outputs relative to opportunity and discipline expectations on diverse evaluations eg
Total citations, h-index (WoS, Scopus, Googlescholar), other index
Benchmarking against your discipline eg h-index, no. of cites
Evaluation of quality eg
Quality of the conference, Prestige of book publisher,
Published reviews of books or book chapters,
Other public evidence of recognition eg Used by policy makers to change public policy and make new laws; sales; no. of editions etc.

12. Q4 (b) (Cont’d)
Invitations, Honours & awards/prizes, other esteem measures eg
Keynote addresses esp. at international conferences
Evidence for quality of conference presentations (eg high rejection rate, top international conference, prize/award)
Editorial roles & reviewer (also ranks of those journals)
Fellowships in learned societies or elected to prestigious bodies
External competitive grants
International research collaborations
No. of PhD completions & where employed now
Other measures eg other invitations, prizes/awards

13. Benchmarking
Find publicly available evaluations of your field that list academics in your field or averages for your field on evaluations (eg no. of pubs, cites), often published in journals
How do you compare? Or are you acknowledged?
Calculate your h- or other index from Publish or Perish (Googlescholar) & compare to averages from Harzing ( )
Harzing, A. W. ( ). The publish or perish book. Melbourne: Tarma Software Research Pty Ltd. ttp://

14. h-Index Values for Social Work Academics
For tenure-track faculty at top 10 institutions in U.S.
Mean Mdn Conf Interval
Assistant prof , 4.62
Associate prof , 9.32
Full prof , 17.45
For editorial board members
Assistant prof , 5.24
Associate prof , 8.88
Full prof , 15.54
Lacasse, J.R., Hodge, D.R., & Bean, K.F.(2011). Evaluating the productivity of social work scholars using the h-Index. Research on Social Work Practice, 21(5),

15. The End

16. What Harms Your ROPE Score?
DP: Weak team member on publications, subject to opportunity unless ECR
Last 5 Years’ Publications: Too few publications, none recently
LAST 5 YEARS’ PUBLICATIONS AND BEST 10 PUBS
Giving: textbooks & working papers; conference presentations or abstracts; seminars/workshops; urls; reports, government publications etc.
Giving too few journal articles & no scholarly books;
Not giving objective evidence for quality of publications
Omitting or giving wrong information for any publication
Not giving authors’ names in order appear on publication or ARC grant
Best 10 Pubs
Giving mostly journals or books of low rank or reputation or local
Giving Conference proceedings or book chapters, unless is the norm for publishing the top papers in your field

17. How to Make Answers in RMS Readable
Despite your typing them (eg carriage returns), no white space or indents emerge, so answers to qs 1, 4 and 5 are unreadable
Split answer to each of Qs 1, 4 & 5 into typed capitalised headings of (A), (B), (C), (D) etc with named themes/categories, and each as a CAPITALISED heading
Eg (A) INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION:
Give specific information for answers to Qs 4 and 5, not broad or general statements eg
Always give years for everything mentioned
Give names of associations eg for prizes, conferences
Give specific information for publications or grants eg $, all authors in order appear on publication, titles, year
For “forthcoming” books, give full information
Be brief. Do not write a story