National Scientific Qualification An unofficial guide
National Scientific Qualification. An unofficial guide Prepared by: Gruppo Pubblicazioni Sapienza abilitazioni@uniroma1.it Guide written by Irene Bongioanni and Marco Schaerf Software tools developed by Claudio Di Ciccio, Adriano Fazzone and Valentina Maltese English Proofreading: Mary Joan Crowley National Scientific Qualification. An unofficial guide... 1 1. Introduction... 2 2. Choice of Academic Discipline (SC)... 2 3. Requirements and Steps... 5 4. Registration on MIUR website... 6 5. Exporting publications form Web Of Science... 12 6. Exporting publications from Scopus... 15 7. Fix data with Pub4NSQ application... 17 8. Import publications on loginmiur... 18 9. Filling in the Application Form... 21 10. Guide for Scopus Application Italian Professorship Qualification... 24
1. Introduction Sapienza University is the largest teaching university in Europe and a leading research university in Italy. Boasting internationally renowned scientists in many disciplines, ranging from arts and humanities to physics and engineering, Sapienza aims to attract further highly qualified international researchers. To become eligible to apply for a position in an Italian university, researchers need first to get the National Scientific Qualification. To facilitate international participation, Sapienza promoted the packaging of this guide to help researchers who are not fluent in Italian or not familiar with Italian regulations to apply. The National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale, from now on Abilitazione), is the new process to recruit University Professors, based on scientific qualification criteria. More information can be found on the official site http://abilitazione.miur.it/public/normativa.php?sersel=1&lang=eng Very briefly, the new recruiting process for the positions of Full and Associate Professors is based on a two-phase process. The candidate must first obtain the Abilitazione, and only then apply for a position at an Italian University. Candidates need to apply for a specific Academic Discipline (Settore Concorsuale, SC from now on). If application is made for more than one SC, remember that each application requires a separate form. The deadline for applications is November 20 th at 5pm (Italian time, GMT+1). We also prepared a video tutorial, available on the Sapienza University YouTube channel, at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=pl3te9emoljl2csgkwdtawyvexevrgyl61&feature=vi ew_all 2. Choice of Academic Discipline (SC) The content of Sections 2-4 is also presented in the video tutorial: Videoguide to apply for Italian National Scientific Qualification 1\4 An important step in the procedure for the National Scientific Qualification application is the choice of Academic Discipline (SC) to apply for. To make the correct choice the list of the translated Italian Academic Disciplines can be found at the following link: English Academic Disciplines Alternatively, if the applicant knows an Italian researcher from their scientific field, he/she can search the SC of this researcher on this website: http://cercauniversita.cineca.it/php5/docenti/cerca.php From the home page (see figure below), insert last name and name of the researcher in the fields Cognome and Nome respectively, then press Invio.
As a result, a page like the one shown below will be displayed with the details of the researcher. The penultimate field is the SC.
IMPORTANT Note that SCs are related to Italian Discipline Areas. In particular, the first two numerical characters in each SC describe the Discipline Area to which the SC belongs (for example, the SC 02/A1 belongs to the 02 Discipline Area, Physics). The list of Discipline Areas is available in the Abilitazioni call, at the following link: Call for Candidates In the table that contains all 14 Discipline Areas the maximum number of scientific products each applicant can present in the application form is also reported, based on the Discipline Area the relevant SC belongs to.
3. Requirements and Steps The call introduces a number of Indicators of Scientific Productivity, three for the so-called bibliometric Academic Disciplines and three for the non-bibliometric areas. Here you can find (in Italian) the list of bibliometric Academic Disciplines and the threshold values for 1. Full Professor for bibliometric Academic Disciplines 2. Associate Professor for bibliometric Academic Disciplines 3. Full Professor for non-bibliometric Academic Disciplines 4. Associate Professor for non-bibliometric Academic Disciplines The 3 indicators for the bibliometric Academic Disciplines are based on data in the Web of Science (also called ISI, WoS from now on) and Scopus, and are normalized by your academic age, defined as : academic age = (2012 + 1) (year of your first publication indexed by either WoS or Scopus) Using this definition the indicators are defined as follows, where you should always pick the maximum between WoS and Scopus values: 1. Total number of Journal Papers published since 2002 (inclusive) 2. Total number of citations received divided by your academic age 3. Contemporary H-index as defined in: Antonis Sidiropoulos, Dimitrios Katsaros and Yannis Manolopoulos Generalized Hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks, Scientometrics Volume 72, Number 2 (2007), 253-280, DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1722-z A candidate satisfies these MINIMAL requirements if (strictly) above at least 2 out of 3 thresholds. If you do not want to manually compute your indicators you can use a specifically developed Scopus application. You can find a brief guide at the end of this document. The 3 indicators for the non-bibliometric Academic Disciplines are all based on the scientific production for the years 2002-2012 and are: 1. Total number of books 2. Total number of Journal papers and Book chapters 3. Total number of Journal papers published in A-class journals There is a separate list of A-class journals for each Academic Discipline that can be found here. A candidate satisfies these MINIMAL requirements if (strictly) above at least 1 out of 3 thresholds. To apply for the Abilitazione you need to register on the so-called Professor Site (Sito Docente, loginmiur from now on) and then fill in the application form. By far the most complex task is to upload your publications to the loginmiur site. To simplify this task follow these steps to complete your application: 1. Choose the Academic Discipline (SC) and the professorship level (Associate or Full Professor) you want to apply. Note, if you want to apply for more than one SC you need to fill in one form per application.
2. Create a PDF file of a valid ID (you need to upload it later on in the procedure) 3. Select your best publications, at most equal to the maximum number of publications required for the chosen Academic Discipline (SC) and professorship level, and keep a copy ready to upload them later on in the procedure 4. Register at the loginmiur site 5. Upload all of your publications in loginmiur 6. Fill in the application form 7. Load the PDF file of all of the publications you intend to attach to your application. The maximum number of publications you can attach depends on the Disciplinary Area you are applying for and on the Level (Full or Associate Professor). The precise numbers are in the Call for Candidates. 8. Print the application form, sign it and upload it together with the PDF file of a valid ID by 5pm (Italian time GMT+1) of November 20 th 2012. 4. Registration on MIUR website In this section we provide all the information useful to register on the MIUR (Ministry of University and Research) website, in order to apply for the National Scientific Qualification call. Start registration Go to the loginmiur home page using the following link, then click on press here to start the registration https://loginmiur.cineca.it/
Registration Insert all required information, then press the Registra (Register) button at the end of the page (see figures below).
Complete registration procedure
Check the inserted information. If there is something wrong follow the link Torna indietro e correggi (Go back and correct) and correct the information; when all data is correct press the Conferma (Confirm) button. The following page will be displayed, with the message Thanks for signing up. The personal access codes have been sent to the indicated email address. Registration completed Now the applicant can go back to the loginmiur home page, insert the username and password received by email and continue with the Abilitazioni procedure. If you are applying for a bibliometric Academic Discipline (SC) then we assume that most of your publications are indexed by either Web of Science or Scopus. In the next Sections we describe how you can download your publications for these two bibliographic databases and combine them together in a number of files that can then be uploaded to the loginmiur website. If you apply for a
non- bibliometric Academic Discipline (SC) the only way to insert your publications is to load them manually through the publication module of the loginmiur website as follows: Select Pubblicazioni and the following page will appear: On the right side of the page, select the document type of the publication you want to insert. The list of document types is in the following order: Contribution in Journal, which contains Journal paper, Journal review, Bibliographic data, Comment on a case, Journal abstract, Journal translation. Contribution in Volume, which contains Volume chapter or essay, Volume preface or postface, Short introduction, Dictionary or Encyclopedia item, Volume translation, Volume review, Catalog cards. Book, which contains Monograp or Scientific treatise, Concordance, Index, Bibliography, Critical edition, Publication of unpublished sources, Scientific comment, Book translation.
Contribution in Conference Proceeding, which contains Proceeding paper, abstract in conference proceeding, poster. Patent. Curatorship. Other type, which contains Composition, Design, Performance, Exhibit, Handwork, Prototype of art and related projects, Cartography, Database, Software, Other. For example, if you select Monograp, the following form will appear: Fill in the form with the required information then press Conferma at the end of the page. If there are no errors in the form, the publication will appear in the Pubblicazioni home (Publications home page). The information you need to insert in the form is in the following order:
Authors, separated by ; or, (Mandatory) Title (Mandatory) Language Series title (you need to search for it by clicking on Cerca in archivio ) Publication year (Mandatory) Acceptance year Format (the options are: print, on line, CD-ROM) Number of Volume Pages (from to total ) ISBN ISMN DOI Url Editor (Name, City, Country) Indexed by (If the publication is indexed by Web Of Science, Scopus or PubMed you need to insert the WoS code, the Scopus code or the PubMed id respectively) Abstract (Insert abstract in the blank space, then select the language) Keywords (Insert keywords then select the language) Other information (here, you can insert any other information you consider relevant) 5. Exporting publications form Web Of Science The content of Sections 5-8 is also presented in the video tutorial: Videoguide to apply for Italian National Scientific Qualification 2\4 1. Go to Web Of Science website: webofknowledge.com
2. Go to the Author Search section and insert Last Name and Initials of Name, then press NEXT and select the Research Domain. Press SEARCH. 3. Check the document list in order to find any incorrect product.
4. Go to the end of the page, in the Output Records section: a. Step 1: Select records from 1 to Final (IMPORTANT: it is possible to export only 500 records at a time) b. Step 2: Select Full Record (without Cited References) c. Step 3: Select Plain Text (this option is in the drop-down menu) as saving option d. Press SAVE A page like the one below will be displayed together with the dialog window for saving exported data.
6. Exporting publications from Scopus 1. Go to Scopus website: scopus.com 2. Go to the Author Search section and insert Last Name and Initials of Name, then press SEARCH.
3. Find the correct author in the list and click on the number of documents. 4. Check the document list then select All (1) and press EXPORT button (2).
2 1 5. Select the following options for exporting data a. Export Format: RIS format (Reference Manager, ProCite, EndNote) b. Output: Specify fields to be exported, then select Citation Information (all subfields) and Bibliographic Information (all sub-fields), as shown in the next figure c. Press EXPORT a. b. c. b. b. 7. Fix data with Pub4NSQ application
5 2 3 4 6 7 1. Go to Pub4NSQ homepage http://aixia.dis.uniroma1.it/pub4nsq/ 2. Insert your email address 3. Upload the file exported from Web Of Science 4. Upload the file exported from Scopus 5. Select the average number of authors per paper: this option determine the number of publications each returned file will contain, the first option, 1-20, means 50 products per file, while the other option, more than 20 means 25 products per file. 6. Solve the Captcha 7. Press Submit You will receive an email with a.zip folder containing two sub-folders, one for Journal papers, one for Proceeding papers. Each sub-folder contains a number of files (depending on your choice at 5.) with the list of your publications in a format that can be easily imported on the loginmiur site. The need for a limited number of publications in each file is due to uploading speed, that can be very slow for heavy files. IMPORTANT: the application works even if one of the files is not loaded, i.e. if candidate s products are not indexed either in Web Of Science or Scopus, it is sufficient to load only one file to obtain the fixed data. 8. Import publications on loginmiur 1. Go to loginmiur homepage and log in
2. On the left side of the page, click on Pubblicazioni (Publications) 3. Click on MODS in the Importa (Import) section
4. Select file and Classificazione (Document type) from the dropdown menu between Articolo su rivista (Journal paper) and Contributo in Atti di Convegno (Proceeding paper), then press Inserisci (Insert) 5. Check for any error in the import process. The upload procedure is not always successfully completed: in those cases, you find the link to the list of not-yet-uploaded publications in the page shown in figure at 3. just below the Import section. Follow that link and open each publication in order to fix the errors reported in the form. The main error concerns the Journal title (Titolo rivista) that sometimes is not recognized in the uploading process. If that is the case, you need to click on Cerca in archivio (Search the archive), then insert the journal title and/or the issn and click cerca (find). A list with all the possible journals will be displayed, you need to find the correct one and click on seleziona (select). Any other error is reported in red in the form, correct it and press conferma (confirm) at the end of the page.
9. Filling in the Application Form The content of Section 9 is also presented in the video tutorial: Videoguide to apply for Italian National Scientific Qualification 3\4 In this section we describe the steps necessary to fill the application form that completes the Abilitazioni applying procedure. 1. Go to the applicant home page and follow the link Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale. 2. Select English Language, then choose Subject Area (i.e. SC) and Position and press Record to start a new application.
3. Insert all the required information and press Save at the end of each completed section. 4. Ignore the section Periods of Leave. 5. In section Scientific Publications, applicants can select the publications previously imported on the website. In addition, applicants need to specify those they want to present for the application by ticking the checkbox Of which to be presented. Remember only a limited number of publications can be presented in the application (see section 2). 6. At the end of the form it is possible to check the inserted data pressing Preview Saved Data, or the final application format pressing Preview Application.
7. When the form is completed, press Next button to go to the next step. 8. If the message The following anomalies were noted in the data submitted is displayed, please press Indietro (Back) button and correct the anomalies. 9. When the form is correct, it is necessary to upload the pdf files ONLY of the publications applicants want to present. As shown in the figure below, for each publication, click on Scegli file (Select file), load the pdf file related to that publication, then press UPLOAD.
IMPORTANT: only a pdf file for each product can be uploaded and its dimension cannot exceed 50 MB. 10. Guide for Scopus Application Italian Professorship Qualification The content of Section 10 is also presented in the video tutorial: Videoguide to apply for Italian National Scientific Qualification 4\4 We developed a Scopus application that, only for the so-called bibliometric Academic Disciplines, will compute for you your indicators. These indicators are only based on the data contained in your Author Profile in Scopus, if this profile is not accurate, the results will not be correct. To use the application you need to perform the following tasks: 1. Connect to Scopus. 2. If you are already registered Login, otherwise Register (it s free) and then Login. 3. Select Applications in the list at the top.
1 3 2 4. Search for the application Italian Professorship Qualification, by typing sapienza in the search box (a), then click on its name (b). a b
5. Add the application. The application is now active. 6. Go to the Author Search page, insert your last name and the initial of the first name, then press Search. 7. Select your name from the list of results. You are now in your Author Profile page.
8. In the bottom-right of the window you should have the Italian Professorship Qualification application. Click on the Start button.
9. In the pop-up page check that all publications are indeed yours and then click on the Next Step button.
10. In the new page, choose (a) the position (either Full or Associate Professor) and (b) the Academic Discipline (Area). The application will verify whether your indicators are above the required thresholds. (b) (a)
We would like to thank you for your attention and we wish you every success in your application for the Italian National Scientific Qualification and we hope you will consider Sapienza University for any future position you apply for.