Account for variation by field in publication: Bibliometric databases’ analysis in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution

This study seeks to examine the variation by field in publication practices in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution (HEI), where both research in Social Sciences and in Hard Sciences is conducted. The intention is to raise the issue of the suitability of bibliometrics for the Professors/researchers’ evaluation considering their areas of research, as well as understanding the sort of use they make of these instruments. Different bibliometric Databases were managed to analyze the use given to them by all the researchers in this HEI and to find out the main differences in its use according to the researched field of study. These results might represent a valuable source of information for HEIs in the process of finding the balance between the different procedures and format for the evaluation of researchers, to identify their in/ability to proficiently use these tools and to study the suitability of each tool to different profiles.