A comparison between two main academic literature collections: Web of Science and Scopus databases

Aghaei Chadegani, Arezoo, Salehi, Hadi, Yunus, Melor Md, Farhadi, Hadi, Fooladi, Masood, Farhadi, Maryam and Ale Ebrahim, Nader A comparison between two main academic literature collections: Web of Science and Scopus databases. Asian Social Science , 2013, vol. 9, n. 5, pp. 18-26. [Journal article (Paginated)]

[thumbnail of 26960-90396-1-SM.pdf]
Preview
Text
26960-90396-1-SM.pdf

Download (328kB) | Preview

English abstract

Nowadays, the world’s scientific community has been publishing an enormous number of papers in different scientific fields. In such environment, it is essential to know which databases are equally efficient and objective for literature searches. It seems that two most extensive databases are Web of Science and Scopus. Besides searching the literature, these two databases used to rank journals in terms of their productivity and the total citations received to indicate the journals impact, prestige or influence. This article attempts to provide a comprehensive comparison of these databases to answer frequent questions which researchers ask, such as: How Web of Science and Scopus are different? In which aspects these two databases are similar? Or, if the researchers are forced to choose one of them, which one should they prefer? For answering these questions, these two databases will be compared based on their qualitative and quantitative characteristics.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: Web of Science, Scopus, Database, Citations, Provenance, Coverage, Searching, Citation tracking, Impact factor, Indexing, H-index, Researcher profile, Researcher ID
Subjects: B. Information use and sociology of information
C. Users, literacy and reading.
E. Publishing and legal issues.
K. Housing technologies.
L. Information technology and library technology
Depositing user: Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim
Date deposited: 14 May 2013 20:26
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:25
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/19207

References

Abrizah, A., Zainab, A., Kiran, K., & Raj, R. (2012). LIS journals scientific impact and subject categorization: a comparison between Web of Science and Scopus. Scientometrics.

Bakkalbassi, N., Bauer, K., Glover, J., & Wang, L. (2006). Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. Biomedical Digital Libraries, 3(7). Retrieved from http://www.bio-diglib.com/content/3/1/7.

Bar-Ilan, J. (2008). Which h-index? – A comparison of Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 74(2), 257-271.

Bar-Ilan, J. Levene, M., & Lin, A. (2007). Some measures for comparing citation databases. Journal of Informetrics, 1(1), 26-34.

Bauer, K., & Bakkalbasi, N. (2005). An examination of citation counts in a new scholarly communication environment. D-Lib Magazine, 11(9). Retrieved November 25, 2007, from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/bauer/09bauer.html

Bergstrom, C. (2007). Eigen factor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals. College & Research Libraries News, 68(5), 314-316.

Boyle, F., & Sherman, D. (2006). Scopus: The product and its development. The Serials Librarian, 49(3), 147-153.

Burnham, J. F. (2006). Scopus database: a review. Biomedical Digital Libraries, 3(1).

Chou, P. N. (2012). A Comparison Study of Impact Factor in Web of Science and Scopus Databases for Engineering Education and Educational Technology Journals. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 9, 187-194.

Deis, L., & Goodman, D. (2005). Web of Science (2004 version) and Scopus. The Charleston Advisor, 6(3). Retrieved from http://www.charlestonco.com/comp.cfm?id=43

Dess, H. M. (2006). Database reviews and reports: Scopus. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 45 (Winter). Retrieved from http://www.istl.org

Egghe, L. (2006). An improvement of the h-index: the g-index. ISSI Newsletter, 2(1), 8-9.

Escalona Fernández, M. I., Lagar Barbosa, P., & Pulgarín Guerrero, A. (2010). Web of Science Vs. Scopus: un estudio cuantitativo en ingeniería química. Anales de Documentación, 13, 159-175.

Falagas, M. E., Kouranos, V. D., Arencibia-Jorge, R., & Karageorgopoulos, D. E. (2008). Comparison of SCImago journal rank indicator with journal impact factor. The FASEB Journal, 22(8), 2623-2628.

Fingerman, S. (2006). Web of Science and Scopus: Current features and capabilities. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 48(Fall). Retrieved from http://www.istl.org/06-fall/electronic2.html

Garfield, E. (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA-Journal of the American Medical Association, 295(1), 90-93.

Gary, E., & Hodkinson, S. Z. (2008). Comparison of journal citation reports and Scopus impact factors for ecology and environmental sciences journals. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 54.

Glanzel, W., Schlemmer, B., Schubert, A., & Thijs, B. (2006). Proceedings literature as additional data source for bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 68(3), 457-473.

Guz, A. N., & Rushchitsky, J. J. (2009). Scopus: A system for the evaluation of scientific journals. International Applied Mechanics, 45(4), 351-362.

Haddow, G., & Genoni, P. (2010). Citation analysis and peer ranking of Australian social science journals. Scientometrics, 85(2), 471-487.

Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16569-16572.

Jacso, P. (2005). As we may search – Comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases. Current Science, 89(9), 1537-1547.

Kulkarni, A. V. Aziz, B., Shams, I., & Busse, J. W. (2009). Comparisons of citation in Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar for articles published in general medical journals. JAMA, 302, 1092-1096.

Laguardia, C. (2005). E-views and reviews: Scopus vs. Web of Science. Library Journal, 15.

Levine-Clark, M., & Gil, E. L. (2009). A comparative citation analysis of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship, 14(1), 32-46.

Li, J., Burnham, J. F., Lemley, T., & Britton, R. M. (2010). Citation Analysis: Comparison of Web of Science, Scopus, SciFinder, and Google Scholar. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 7(3), 196-217.

Lopez-Illescas, C., Moya-Anegon, F., & Moed, H. F. (2008). Coverage and citation impact of oncological journals in the Web of Science and Scopus. Journal of Informetrics, 2(4), 304-316.

Meho, L. I., & Rogers, Y. (2008). Citation counting, citation ranking, and h-index of human-computer interaction researchers: A comparison of Scopus and Web of Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(11), 1711-1726.

Meho, L. I., & Sugimoto, C. R. (2009). Assessing the scholarly impact of information studies: A tale of two citation databases — Scopus and Web of Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(12), 2499-2508.

Moed, H. F. (2010). Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals. Journal of Informetrics, 4(3), 265-277.

Neuhaus, C., & Daniel, H. D. (2008). Data sources for performing citation analysis: an overview. Journal of Documentation, 64(2), 193-210.

Pislyakov, V. (2009). Comparing two thermometers: Impact factors of 20 leading economic journals ac-cording to Journal Citation Reports and Scopus. Scientometrics, 79(3), 541-550.

Quint, B. (2006). Elsevier’s Scopus introduces citation tracker: challenge to Thomson ISI’s Web of Science? Retrieved from http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=16004

Raj, R. G., & Zainab, Z. N. (2012). Relative measure index: a metric to measure quality. Scientometrics.

Vieira, E. S., & Gomes, J. A. N. F. (2009). A comparison of Scopus and Web of Science for a typical university. Scientometrics, 81(2), 587-600.


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item