HERDC - the Higher Education Research Data Collection

The information on these pages draws on information adapted from the HERDC specifications. It is designed to assist CSU authors in determining if a publication is eligible for inclusion, and outline what additional documentation and materials may be needed for verification purposes.

If you require further clarification than is offered here, please contact the Research Office.

  1. What is HERDC?
  2. Publication categories
  3. HERDC criteria and verification requirements
  4. FAQs
  5. Useful contacts/links

HERDC - An overview

The Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) is an annual government reporting requirement, comprising research data (income and publications) from all Australian tertiary institutions. The data collected is returned to DIISR (Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research), and used to determine funding allocations to the tertiary sector. Publications data is collected from four categories, and publication points awarded to eligible publications, as follows:

  • A1: Books - authored research (5 points)
  • B: Book Chapter (1 point)
  • C1: Journal Articles - refereed article in a scholarly journal (1 point)
  • E1: Conference Publications - full written paper refereed (1 point)

Submission to the collection is made electronically through CRO (Charles Sturt University Research Output - the online institutional repository), and instructions on how to complete the electronic forms are available on CRO.

The HERDC return is due annually on 30th June; however, submissions need to be made by no later than Friday 29th March, 2013 to allow for timely processing and verification. During the course of verification, you may be contacted and asked to provide additional supporting materials. Please be aware that failure to supply the documentation requested may result in exclusion from the submission.

Publication Categories

The four publication categories included for the HERDC are:
  • A1: Books - authored research (5 points)
  • B: Book Chapter (1 point)
  • C1: Journal Articles - refereed article in a scholarly journal (1 point)
  • E1: Conference Publications - full written paper refereed (1 point)

Note that point share is always split equally between all authors listed on a publication - regardless of their relative 'input' or affiliation. The exception is book chapters, where points are awarded on a sliding scale that takes into account the number of chapters in a book, the number of chapters an author contributed to, and how many authors were on each chapter. This calculation is made as part of the verification process.

Creative works are not included in the HERDC collection, but should be entered on CRO for consideration in the CSU Creative Works Register.

Useful Contacts/Links

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