Web of Science is an online subscription-based scientific citation indexing service maintained
by Thomson Reuters that provides a comprehensive citation search.
It gives access to multiple databases that reference cross-disciplinary research, which
allows for in-depth exploration of specialized sub-fields within an academic or scientific
discipline.
Background 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," who launched the
Science Citation Index, which in turn led to the Web of Science, 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.
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, and Web of Science now has indexing coverage from the year 1900 to the
present.
The multidisciplinary coverage of the Web of Science encompasses over 50,000 scholarly
books, 12,000 journals and 160,000 conference proceedings.
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.
However, Web of Science does not index all journals, and its coverage in some fields
is less complete than in others.
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.
Titles of foreign-language publications are translated into English and so cannot be found
by searches in the original language.
Citation databases Web of Science consist of seven online databases:
Conference Proceedings Citation Index covers more than 160,000 conference titles in the
Sciences starting from 1990 to the present day
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.
Index Chemicus lists more than 2.6 million compounds.
The time of coverage is from 1993 to present day.
Current Chemical Reactions indexes over one million reactions, and the range of coverage
is from 1986 to present day.
The INPI archives from 1840 to 1985 are also indexed in this database.
Book Citation Index covers more than 60,000 editorially selected books starting from 2005.
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.
Institutions such as universities and research departments generally access the Web of Science
through the Web of Knowledge platform.
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.
Limitations in the use of citation analysis As with other scientific approaches, scientometrics
and bibliometrics have their own limitations.
Recently, 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
nontransparent.
Regarding the more objective journal metrics, there is a growing view that for greater accuracy
it must be supplemented with an article-based assessment and peer-review.
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."
See also
References
External links Web of Science
Web of Knowledge Searching the Citation Indexes Harvard College
Library.
2010.
MIT Web of Science video tutorial. 2008.