Web of Science

Web of Science (previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a website which provides subscription-based access to multiple databases that provide comprehensive citation data for many different academic disciplines. It was originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and is currently maintained by Clarivate Analytics (previously the Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson Reuters[1]).

Web of Science
ProducerClarivate Analytics (United States)
Coverage
DisciplinesScience, social science, arts, humanities (supports 256 disciplines)
Record depthCitation indexing, author, topic title, subject keywords, abstract, periodical title, author's address, publication year
Format coverageFull text articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, proceedings (journals and book-based ), technical papers
Temporal coverage1900 to present
No. of records90 million +
Links

Background and history

A citation index is built on the fact that citations in science serve as linkages between similar research items, and lead to matching or related scientific literature, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, abstracts, etc. In addition, literature which shows the greatest impact in a particular field, or more than one discipline, can be easily located through a citation index. For example, a paper's influence can be determined by linking to all the papers that have cited it. In this way, current trends, patterns, and emerging fields of research can be assessed. Eugene Garfield, the "father of citation indexing of academic literature,"[2] who launched the Science Citation Index (SCI), which in turn led to the Web of Science,[3] wrote:

Citations are the formal, explicit linkages between papers that have particular points in common. A citation index is built around these linkages. It lists publications that have been cited and identifies the sources of the citations. Anyone conducting a literature search can find from one to dozens of additional papers on a subject just by knowing one that has been cited. And every paper that is found provides a list of new citations with which to continue the search. The simplicity of citation indexing is one of its main strengths.[4]

Search and analysis

Web of Science is described as a unifying research tool which enables the user to acquire, analyze, and disseminate database information in a timely manner. This is accomplished because of the creation of a common vocabulary, called ontology, for varied search terms and varied data. Moreover, search terms generate related information across categories.

Acceptable content for Web of Science is determined by an evaluation and selection process based on the following criteria: impact, influence, timeliness, peer review, and geographic representation.[5]

Web of Science employs various search and analysis capabilities. First, citation indexing is employed, which is enhanced by the capability to search for results across disciplines. The influence, impact, history, and methodology of an idea can be followed from its first instance, notice, or referral to the present day. This technology points to a deficiency with the keyword-only method of searching.

Second, subtle trends and patterns relevant to the literature or research of interest, become apparent. Broad trends indicate significant topics of the day, as well as the history relevant to both the work at hand, and particular areas of study.

Third, trends can be graphically represented.[5][6]

Coverage
Entering a search query on Web of Science.

Expanding the coverage of Web of Science, in November 2009 Thomson Reuters introduced Century of Social Sciences. This service contains files which trace social science research back to the beginning of the 20th century,[7][8] and Web of Science now has indexing coverage from the year 1900 to the present.[9][10] As of 24 February 2017, the multidisciplinary coverage of the Web of Science encompasses 12,000 high impact journals and 160,000 conference proceedings.[11] The selection is made on the basis of impact evaluations and comprise open-access journals, spanning multiple academic disciplines. The coverage includes: the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, and goes across disciplines.[9][12] However, Web of Science does not index all journals.

There is a significant and positive correlation between Impact Factor and CiteScore. However, an analysis by Elsevier, who created the journal evaluation metric CiteScore, has identified 216 journals from 70 publishers to be in the top 10 percent of the most-cited journals in their subject category based on the CiteScore while they did not have Impact Factor.[13] It appears that Impact Factor does not provide a comprehensive and an unbiased coverage of high quality journals. Similar results can be observed by comparing Impact Factor with SCImago Journal Rank.

Furthermore, as of September 3, 2014 the total file count of the Web of Science was 90 million records, which included over a billion cited references. This citation service on average indexes around 65 million items per year, and it is described as the largest accessible citation database.[12]

Titles of foreign-language publications are translated into English and so cannot be found by searches in the original language.[14]

In 2018, Web of Science started embedding partial information about the open access status of works, using Unpaywall data.[15]

Citation databases
Web of Science databases.

The Web of Science Core Collection consists of six online databases:[16][17]

  • Science Citation Index Expanded covers more than 8,500 notable journals encompassing 150 disciplines. Coverage is from the year 1900 to the present day.
  • Social Sciences Citation Index covers more than 3,000 journals in social science disciplines. Range of coverage is from the year 1900 to the present day.
  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index covers more than 1,700 arts and humanities journals starting from 1975. In addition, 250 major scientific and social sciences journals are also covered.
  • Emerging Sources Citation Index covers over 5,000 journals in the sciences, social science, and humanities.
  • Book Citation Index covers more than 60,000 editorially selected books starting from 2005.
  • Conference Proceedings Citation Index covers more than 160,000 conference titles in the Sciences starting from 1990 to the present day

Regional databases

Since 2008, the Web of Science hosts a number of regional citation indices. The Chinese Science Citation Database, produced in partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was the first one in a language other than English.[18] It was followed in 2013 by the SciELO Citation Index, covering Brazil, Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean and South Africa, and more 12 countries of Latin America;[19] by the Korea Citation Index (KCI) in 2014, with updates from the South Korean National Research Foundation;[20]; by the Russian Science Citation index in 2015 [21] and by the Arabic Regional Citation Index (ARCI) in 2020 [22]

Contents

The seven citation indices listed above contain references which have been cited by other articles. One may use them to undertake cited reference search, that is, locating articles that cite an earlier, or current publication. One may search citation databases by topic, by author, by source title, and by location. Two chemistry databases, Index Chemicus and Current Chemical Reactions allow for the creation of structure drawings, thus enabling users to locate chemical compounds and reactions.

Abstracting and indexing

The following types of literature are indexed: scholarly books, peer reviewed journals, original research articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, as well as other items. Disciplines included in this index are agriculture, biological sciences, engineering, medical and life sciences, physical and chemical sciences, anthropology, law, library sciences, architecture, dance, music, film, and theater. Seven citation databases encompasses coverage of the above disciplines.[10][11][23]

Limitations in the use of citation analysis
Main articles: Citation analysis and San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

As with other scientific approaches, scientometrics and bibliometrics have their own limitations. In 2010, a criticism was voiced pointing toward certain deficiencies of the journal impact factor (JIF) calculation process, based on Thomson Reuters Web of Science, such as: journal citation distributions usually are highly skewed towards established journals; journal impact factor properties are field-specific and can be easily manipulated by editors, or even by changing the editorial policies; this makes the entire process essentially non-transparent.[24]

Regarding the more objective journal metrics, there is a growing view that for greater accuracy it must be supplemented with article-level metrics and peer-review.[24] Thomson Reuters replied to criticism in general terms by stating that "no one metric can fully capture the complex contributions scholars make to their disciplines, and many forms of scholarly achievement should be considered."[25]

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See also

References
  1. Analytics, Clarivate. "Acquisition of the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business by Onex and Baring Asia Completed". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  2. Jacso, Peter. The impact of Eugene Garfield through the prizm of Web of Science. Annals of Library and Information Studies, Vol. 57, September 2010, P. 222. PDF
  3. Garfield, Eugene, Blaise Cronin, and Helen Barsky Atkins. The Web of Knowledge: A Festschrift in Honor of Eugene Garfield. Medford, N.J.: Information Today, 2000.
  4. Garfield, Garfield, Eugene. Citation indexing: Its theory and application in science, technology, and humanities. New York: Wiley, 1979, P. 1. PDF
  5. Overview and Description. ISI Web of Knowledge. Thomson Reuters. 2010. Accessed on 2010-06-24
  6. "Web of Knowledge > Real Facts > Quality and Quantity". Retrieved 2010-05-05.
  7. "Thomson Reuters introduces century of social sciences". Information Today 26.10 (2009): 10. General OneFile. Web. 23 June 2010. Document URL.
  8. Thomson Reuters introduces century of social sciences." Computers in Libraries 29.10 (2009): 47. General OneFile. Internet. 23 June 2010. Document URL
  9. "Overview - Web of Science" (Overview of coverage gleaned from promotional language.). Thomson Reuters. 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
  10. Lee, Sul H. (2010). "Citation Indexing and ISI's Web of Science" (Discussion of finding literature manually. Description of citation indexing, and Web of Science.). The University of Oklahoma Libraries. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
  11. Reuters, Thomson. "Web of Knowledge - Real Facts - IP & Science - Thomson Reuters". Archived from the original on 2017-02-24. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  12. Bulleted fact sheet. Thomson Reuters. 2014.
  13. Survey by Elsevier
  14. "Some Searching Conventions". President and Fellows of Harvard College. December 3, 2009. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
  15. Else, Holly (2018-08-15). "How Unpaywall is transforming open science". Nature. 560 (7718): 290–291. Bibcode:2018Natur.560..290E. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05968-3. PMID 30111793.
  16. "Web of Science Databases". Clarivate Analytics. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  17. "Web of Science fact book" (PDF). Clarivate Analytics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-04-11. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  18. "Chinese Science Citation Database".
  19. "Thomson Reuters Collaborates with SciELO to Showcase Emerging Research Centers within Web of Knowledge".
  20. "Thomson Reuters Collaborates with National Research Foundation of Korea to Showcase the Region's Research in Web of Science".
  21. Reuters, Thomson. "RSCI - IP & Science - Thomson Reuters". Retrieved 10 December 2016.
  22. "The first local language citation index for the Arabic region, hosted on Web of Science™".
  23. "Coverage - Web of Science" (Overview of coverage gleaned from promotional language.). Thomson Reuters. 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
  24. San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: Putting science into the assessment of research, December 16, 2012
  25. Thomson Reuters Statement Regarding the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
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