Web of Science explained

Web of Science
Producer:Clarivate
Country:United States -->
Disciplines:Science, social science, arts, humanities (supports 256 disciplines)
Depth:Citation indexing, author, topic title, subject keywords, abstract, periodical title, author's address, publication year
Formats:Articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, proceedings (journals and book-based), technical papers
Temporal:1900–present

The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedings, and other documents in various academic disciplines. Until 1997, it was originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information.[1] It is currently owned by Clarivate,[2] and currently contains 79 million records in the core collection and 171 million records on the platform.[3]

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 that shows the greatest impact in a particular field, or more than one discipline, can be 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",[4] who launched the Science Citation Index, which in turn led to the Web of Science,[5] wrote:

Search answer

Web of Science "is a unifying research tool which enables the user to acquire, analyze, and disseminate database information in a timely manner".[6] 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.

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.[7] [8]

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.[9] [10]

Coverage

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,[11] [12] and Web of Science now has indexing coverage from the year 1900 to the present.[13] [14] As of February 2017, the multidisciplinary coverage of the Web of Science encompasses: over a billion cited references, 90 million records, covering over 12 thousand high impact journals, and 8.2 million records across 160 thousand conference proceedings, with 15 thousand proceedings added each year.[15] The selection is made on the basis of impact evaluations and comprise academic journals, spanning multiple academic disciplines. The coverage includes: the sciences, social sciences, the arts, and humanities, and goes across disciplines.[13] However, Web of Science does not index all journals.

There is a significant and positive correlation between the 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 an impact factor.[16] It appears that the impact factor does not provide comprehensive and unbiased coverage of high-quality journals. Similar results can be observed by comparing the impact factor with the SCImago Journal Rank.

Furthermore, as of September 2014, the total file count of the Web of Science was over 90 million records, which included over 800 million cited references, covering 5.3 thousand social science publications in 55 disciplines.[17]

Titles of foreign-language publications are translated into English and so cannot be found by searches in the original language.[18]

In 2018, the Web of Science started embedding partial information about the open access status of works, using Unpaywall data.[19]

While marketed as a global point of reference, Scopus and WoS have been characterised as «structurally biased against research produced in non-Western countries, non-English language research, and research from the arts, humanities, and social sciences».[20]

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, on March 11, 2022, Clarivate – which owns Web of Science – announced that it would cease all commercial activity in Russia and immediately close an office there.[21]

Citation databases

The Web of Science Core Collection consists of six online indexing databases:[22] [23]

Regional databases

Since 2008, the Web of Science hosts a number of regional citation indices:

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.[14] [35]

Other databases and products

Among other WoS databases are BIOSIS and The Zoological Record, an electronic index of zoological literature that also serves as the unofficial register of scientific names in zoology.

Web of Science includes other products providing data, analytics, insights, workflow tools, and professional services to researchers, universities, research institutions, governments, private and public research funding organizations, publishers, and research-intensive corporations.[36]

Limitations in the use of citation analysis

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 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.[37]

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. Studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank".[38] 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."[39]

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The History of ISI and the work of Eugene Garfield. Clarivate. Aug 13, 2023.
  2. Acquisition of the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business by Onex and Baring Asia Completed . 13 December 2017 . PR Newswire.
  3. Web site: Matthews . Tracy . 2016-11-11 . Web of Science platform: Web of Science: Summary of Coverage . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20210413085259/https://clarivate.libguides.com/webofscienceplatform/coverage . 2021-04-13 . 2021-04-17 . LibGuides.
  4. Jacso, Peter. The impact of Eugene Garfield through the prism of Web of Science. Annals of Library and Information Studies, Vol. 57, September 2010, P. 222. PDF
  5. 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.
  6. Web site: 2018 . Bæb thds̄xb kār kĥn phb wĕb k̄hxng withyāṣ̄ās̄tr̒ 2018 . th:แบบทดสอบการค้นพบเว็บของวิทยาศาสตร์ 2018 . Web of Science Discovery Quiz 2018 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20210613141948/https://discover.clarivate.com/wosquizTH2018 . 2021-06-13 . 2024-06-23 . . en, th . "Web of Science pĕn kherụ̄̀xng mụ̄x wicạy bæb khrb wngcr thī̀ ch̀wy h̄ı̂ p̄hū̂ chı̂ s̄āmārt̄h rạb wikherāah̄̒ læa p̄hey phær̀ k̄ĥxmūl ṭ̄hān k̄ĥxmūl dị̂ thạn th̀wngthī." Web of Science เป็นเครื่องมือวิจัยแบบครบวงจรที่ช่วยให้ผู้ใช้สามารถรับ วิเคราะห์ และเผยแพร่ข้อมูลฐานข้อมูลได้ทันท่วงที. . Web of Science is a unifying research tool which enables the user to acquire, analyze, and disseminate database information in a timely manner..
  7. Web site: Cited Reference Search . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220810073248/https://webofscience.help.clarivate.com/en-us/Content/cited-reference-search.htm . 2022-08-10 . 2024-06-23 . Clarivate.
  8. Web site: Web of Science Core Collection Overview . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230404214530/https://webofscience.help.clarivate.com/Content/wos-core-collection/wos-core-collection.htm . 2023-04-04 . 2024-06-23 . Clarivate.
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20101123014042/https://www.thomsonreuters.com/content/science/pdf/Web_of_Knowledge_factsheet.pdf Overview and Description
  10. Web site: Web of Knowledge > Real Facts > Quality and Quantity . 2010-05-05.
  11. "Thomson Reuters introduces century of social sciences". Information Today 26.10 (2009): 10. General OneFile. Web. 23 June 2010. Document URL.
  12. Thomson Reuters introduces century of social sciences." Computers in Libraries 29.10 (2009): 47. General OneFile. Internet. 23 June 2010. Document URL
  13. Web site: Overview – Web of Science . Thomson Reuters . 2010 . Overview of coverage gleaned from promotional language. . 2010-06-23.
  14. Web site: Lee . Sul H. . Citation Indexing and ISI's Web of Science . The University of Oklahoma Libraries . 2010 . 2010-06-23.
  15. Web site: Web of Knowledge – Real Facts – IP & Science – Thomson Reuters. https://web.archive.org/web/20170224013916/http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/realfacts . 24 February 2017 . 2017-02-24.
  16. Web site: Tucker . David . 2017-07-25 . CiteScore highlights top-cited journals neglected by other metrics . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170727183600/https://www.elsevier.com/connect/citescore-highlights-top-cited-journals-neglected-by-other-metrics . 2017-07-27 . 2017-12-31 . Elsevier.
  17. Web site: The Citaton Connection - Real Facts - IP & Science . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140924184254/http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/ . 2014-09-24 . 2014-09-03 . Thomson Reuters.
  18. Web site: Some Searching Conventions . President and Fellows of Harvard College . December 3, 2009 . 2010-06-23 . 2011-05-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110521161422/http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/citationindex/#some . dead .
  19. Holly . Else . How Unpaywall is transforming open science . Nature . 2018-08-15 . 290–291 . 560 . 7718 . 10.1038/d41586-018-05968-3 . 30111793 . 2018Natur.560..290E . free.
  20. Jonathan P.. Tennant. Web of Science and Scopus are not global databases of knowledge. European Science Editing. 2020-10-27. 2518-3354. e51987. 46. 10.3897/ese.2020.e51987. free.
  21. Ukrainian researchers pressure journals to boycott Russian authors. Holly. Else. March 14, 2022. Nature. 603. 7902. 559. 10.1038/d41586-022-00718-y. 35288680. 2022Natur.603..559E. 247452826. free.
  22. Web site: Web of Science Databases . Clarivate . August 24, 2018.
  23. Web site: Web of Science fact book . Clarivate . https://web.archive.org/web/20180411042600/https://cdn.clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/d6b7faae-3cc2-4186-8985-a6ecc8cce1ee_Crv_WoS_Upsell_Factbook_A4_FA_LR_edits.pdf . August 24, 2018 . 2018-04-11.
  24. Web site: Science Citation Index Expanded. 2022-01-26. Web of Science Group.
  25. Web site: Social Sciences Citation Index . 2022-01-26 . Web of Science Group.
  26. Web site: Arts & Humanities Citation Index . 2022-01-26 . Web of Science Group.
  27. Web site: Emerging Sources Citation Index . 2022-01-26 . Web of Science Group.
  28. Web site: Book Citation Index . 2022-01-26 . Web of Science Group.
  29. Web site: Conference Proceedings Citation Index . 2022-01-26 . Web of Science Group.
  30. Web site: Chinese Science Citation Database . Apr 17, 2021 . December 7, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161207094830/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/products-services/scholarly-scientific-research/scholarly-search-and-discovery/chinese-science-citation-database.html . dead .
  31. Web site: Thomson Reuters Collaborates with SciELO to Showcase Emerging Research Centers within Web of Knowledge . Apr 17, 2021 . September 21, 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150921194031/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2013/thomson-reuters-collaborates-with-scielo-to-showcase-emerging-research-centers-within-web-of-knowledge.html . dead .
  32. Web site: Thomson Reuters Collaborates with National Research Foundation of Korea to Showcase the Region's Research in Web of Science . Apr 17, 2021 . July 4, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160704230624/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2014/tr-collaborates-with-national-research-foundation-of-korea.html . dead .
  33. Web site: RSCI - IP & Science - Thomson Reuters . Thomson . ((Reuters)) . 10 December 2016.
  34. Web site: Arabic Citation Index . Apr 17, 2021.
  35. Web site: Coverage - Web of Science . Thomson Reuters . 2010 . 2010-06-23.
  36. Web site: World's largest publisher-neutral citation index and research intelligence platform. Web of Science Group.
  37. Web site: San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: Putting science into the assessment of research, December 16, 2012 . June 14, 2013 . January 2, 2016 . https://archive.today/20160102023825/http://am.ascb.org/dora/ . dead .
  38. Brembs. Björn. Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability . Frontiers in Human Neuroscience . 12 . 37 . 2018 . 29515380 . 5826185 . 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00037 . free.
  39. Web site: Thomson Reuters Statement Regarding the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170312073130/http://researchanalytics.thomsonreuters.com/statement_re_sfdra/ . 2017-03-12 . 2013-06-14 . Thomson Reuters.

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