Multidisciplinary bibliographic databases.
01 Sep 2013-Journal of Korean Medical Science (Korean Academy of Medical Sciences)-Vol. 28, Iss: 9, pp 1270-1275
TL;DR: The originator of the idea, Eugene Garfield, formulated several critical points in bibliometrics that have shaped citation indexes, for example, libraries with limited funding should be selective about the journals they acquire and a bibliography should selectively cover 'high quality' sources.
Abstract: The past five decades have witnessed the so-called data deluge and publication explosion across all branches of science (1). Numerous academic journals have been launched that use a systematic approach to the submission, peer review, and publishing of information. To facilitate the wide use of published sources, libraries across the world have expanded cataloguing and advanced literature search techniques.
The first major step towards indexing academic journals and helping libraries acquire the most influential sources was made by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia, USA, in 1960. The idea behind indexing and distributing information on published articles was to facilitate scientific communication between authors and readers (2). In other words, indexing was proposed as a tool for finding relevant sources of interest to the consumers. The originator of the idea, Eugene Garfield, also the founder of the ISI, formulated several critical points in bibliometrics that have shaped citation indexes, for example, libraries with limited funding should be selective about the journals they acquire; most read and highly cited journals constitute 'quality' sources; highly cited articles influence science; citations from highly-cited journals are weighed more than those from low-cited ones; and a bibliography should selectively cover 'high quality' sources.
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140 citations
TL;DR: This article overviews unethical publishing practices in connection with the pressure to publish more, and several measures are proposed to tackle the issue of predatory publishing.
Abstract: This article overviews unethical publishing practices in connection with the pressure to publish more. Both open-access and subscription publishing models can be abused by ‘predatory’ authors, editors, and publishing outlets. Relevant examples of ‘prolific’ scholars are viewed through the prism of the violation of ethical authorship in established journals and indiscriminately boosting publication records elsewhere. The instances of ethical transgressions by brokering editorial agencies and agents, operating predominantly in non-Anglophone countries, are presented to raise awareness of predatory activities. The scheme of predatory publishing activities is presented, and several measures are proposed to tackle the issue of predatory publishing. The awareness campaigns by professional societies, consultations with information facilitators, implementation of the criteria of best target journals, and crediting of scholars with use of integrative citation metrics, such as the h-index, are believed to make a difference.
61 citations
Cites background from "Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..."
...The choice of a bibliographic database for recording the h-index depends on the indexing status of journals in a given discipline, peculiarities of research environments and regional priorities, with Scopus viewed as the most comprehensive platform for authors from Europe and non-Anglophone countries (36)....
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TL;DR: The study suggests that the intensified self-correction in biomedicine is due to the attention of readers and authors, who spot errors in their hub of evidence-based information.
Abstract: Aim
To analyze mistakes and misconduct in multidisciplinary and specialized biomedical journals.
59 citations
TL;DR: It is found that WoS, INSPEC and Scopus provided better quality indexing and better bibliographic records in terms of accuracy, control and granularity of information, when compared to GS and DBLP.
Abstract: We compared general and specialized databases, by searching bibliographic information regarding journal articles in the computer science field, and by evaluating their bibliographic coverage and the quality of the bibliographic records retrieved. We selected a sample of computer science articles from an Italian university repository (AIR) to carry out our comparison. The databases selected were INSPEC, Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), and DBLP. We found that DBLP and Scopus indexed the highest number of unique articles (4.14 and 4.05 % respectively), that each of the four databases indexed a set of unique articles, that 12.95 % of the articles sampled were not indexed in any of the databases selected, that Scopus was better than WoS for identifying computer science publications, and that DBLP had a greater number of unique articles indexed (19.03 %), when compared to INSPEC (11.28 %). We also measured the quality of a set of bibliographic records, by comparing five databases: Scopus, WoS, INSPEC, DBLP and Google Scholar (GS). We found that WoS, INSPEC and Scopus provided better quality indexing and better bibliographic records in terms of accuracy, control and granularity of information, when compared to GS and DBLP. WoS and Scopus also provided more sophisticated tools for measuring trends of scholarly publications.
58 citations
Cites background from "Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..."
...Keywords Web of Science Scopus DBLP INSPEC Google Scholar...
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...Other studies also found that GS required extra analyses of the retrieved citing sources, to single out the irrelevant and non-scholarly materials (Gasparyan et al. 2013)....
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...The research question was: is there a need of using multiple databases for searching computer science articles?...
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...Over the past few years GS has significantly expanded its indexing of full texts of scholarly literature through agreements with publishers (like Elsevier), online libraries and repositories (Gasparyan et al. 2013)....
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References
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TL;DR: Google Scholar shares a total of 42% citations returned by two others, more influential, bibliographic resources, but the list of unique citations in Google Scholar is predominantly journal based, but these journals are mainly of local character.
Abstract: AIM: To analyze the 2007 citation count of articles published by the Croatian Medical Journal in 2005-2006 based on data from the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. ----- METHODS: Web of Science and Scopus were searched for the articles published in 2005-2006. As all articles returned by Scopus were included in Web of Science, the latter list was the sample for further analysis. Total citation counts for each article on the list were retrieved from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The overlap and unique citations were compared and analyzed. Proportions were compared using χ2-test. ----- RESULTS: Google Scholar returned the greatest proportion of articles with citations (45%), followed by Scopus (42%), and Web of Science (38%). Almost a half (49%) of articles had no citations and 11% had an equal number of identical citations in all 3 databases. The greatest overlap was found between Web of Science and Scopus (54%), followed by Scopus and Google Scholar (51%), and Web of Science and Google Scholar (44%). The greatest number of unique citations was found by Google Scholar (n=86). The majority of these citations (64%) came from journals, followed by books and PhD theses. Approximately 55% of all citing documents were full-text resources in open access. The language of citing documents was mostly English, but as many as 25 citing documents (29%) were in Chinese. ----- CONCLUSION: Google Scholar shares a total of 42% citations returned by two others, more influential, bibliographic resources. The list of unique citations in Google Scholar is predominantly journal based, but these journals are mainly of local character. Citations received by internationally recognized medical journals are crucial for increasing the visibility of small medical journals but Google Scholar may serve as an alternative bibliometric tool for an orientational citation insight.
21 citations
"Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..." refers background in this paper
...Journal citation counts in Google Scholar substantially outnumber those in WoS and Scopus (17) and constitute important indicators for small journals from non-Anglophone countries, where a large proportion of citations come from local and non-English journals, PhD theses, and books (18)....
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TL;DR: The way out of these distortions is to educate all stakeholders of scholarly publishing about the issues of ranking and the advantages and limitations of bibliographic databases, which were elegantly explored in a few recent reviews.
Abstract: Current flow of information necessitates a systematic approach to what authors, reviewers and editors read and use as references. The objectivity of communication is increasingly dependent on a comprehensive literature search through online databases (1). Academic institutions wishing to succeed in the global competition secure access to the prestigious databases and archives (2). Journal editors strive to improve the indexing potential of their journals by adhering to the selection criteria of bibliographic databases and by getting access to networking sites (3).
Though most authors and editors are aware of the existence of databases and communication platforms, not all of them are skilled at retrieving essential information and distinguishing 'indexed' journals (4). This leads to manipulations aimed at attracting quality articles to substandard journals. Another example, potentially distorting research reporting, relates to 'systematic' and 'comprehensive' searches, when authors supplement references from MEDLINE, Web of Science and Scopus with items from databases with 'soft' selection criteria, hardly visible for the global audience. Less harmful is the practice of substituting distribution of information through indexing services by increasingly fashionable journal coverage in uncontrolled social networking media such as Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter®, where academic credit is still lacking (5, 6). Obviously, the way out of these distortions is to educate all stakeholders of scholarly publishing about the issues of ranking and the advantages and limitations of bibliographic databases, which were elegantly explored in a few recent reviews (7-9).
Herein it is necessary to highlight some critical points. Perhaps one of the most popular, rapidly updated, free and easy-to-use databases is MEDLINE® (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) accessible through PubMed, EBSCO and Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge® platforms. Over the past few decades, it has gained utmost importance for biomedical and allied researchers and practitioners, who perform searches through this database on a daily basis. Editors also rely on MEDLINE/PubMed as a source of information on actively researching and publishing authors qualified as potential peer reviewers (10).
Most biomedical editors consider the indexing of their journals by MEDLINE as the main achievement of their work and a critical factor of their impact (8). MEDLINE indexes abstracts from more than 5,500 evidence-based journals and online books covering numerous biomedical disciplines. It also selectively covers journals from sociology, science communication, scientometrics, chemistry and physics with relevance to life science, health care and biology. Journals publishing original items with a high level of evidence (ie original papers, systematic reviews and meta-analyses), a specific scope of interest and a relevance to a certain geographic region have good chances of being indexed by MEDLINE. Though language is not an indexing criterion, and many non-English journals are now represented in MEDLINE/PubMed, the quality and readability of the main texts, and especially abstracts, are critical for indexing.
One of the main advantages of MEDLINE is its reliance on the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus, which facilitates retrieval of articles through PubMed and Entrez search engine of the US National Library of Medicine. This is why most journals visible on PubMed and PubMed Central still require MEDLINE indexing as the next step towards better citability and impact. The main limitation of MEDLINE is that it covers abstracts only. Abstract coverage is regularly updated, but mainly within the period of 'big science' (since the 1950s). However, a large proportion of MEDLINE/PubMed-indexed journals have recently been linked to publishers' and PubMed Central full-text sites, or to the citation tracking through PubMed Central and specifically designed evaluation platforms (eg Faculty 1000®). Some historical papers have also appeared on MEDLINE and PubMed Central recently.
Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge® (WoK) platform includes the Web of Science® (WoS), the highly prestigious and selective multidisciplinary citation index of more than 12,000 influential journals, with coverage from the 1970s. More than 5,600 academic institutions worldwide now subscribe to WoS and encourage publications in WoS-indexed journals, bearing a quantifiable credit to the individual and institutional research work (11). In 2005, Thomson Reuters launched the WoS Century of Science project which substantially expanded coverage of historical papers back to 1900. The initiative positioned WoS at the top of most comprehensive databases that are of particular interest to science sociologists (9). Cover-to-cover indexing is available through the following databases of WoS: Science Citation Index Expanded® (also known as SciSearch®), Social Sciences Citation Index®, Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science®, and Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science and Humanities®. Given the proliferation of online books and the need to track their citations, the Book Citation Index® database was also launched recently.
Citation analysis through the WoS database is reported annually by Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), which delivers information on a variety of citation metrics, including the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), and ranks journals based on the quantity and 'prestige' of citations. Importantly, to get listed by and remain in JCR, a journal should attract citations from WoS-indexed journals. Indexed publications with declining and low citation rates are subject to elimination from the JCR list. On the other extreme, journals with citation manipulations and excessive auto-citations (more than 80%) are also subject to exclusion from the JCR list (since 2008).
Currently most editors and reviewers rely on information from the WoK platform in their routine practice. Publishers set goals for expanded indexing and distribution of information, which is possible through the WoK Current Contents® (CC) databases. These databases provide rapidly updated access to tables of contents, bibliographic and related data from a wide range of subject categories: life sciences, clinical medicine, arts and humanities, agriculture, biology and environmental sciences, social and behavioural sciences, engineering, physical, chemical and earth sciences.
The largest subscription-based database of citations and abstracts is SciVerse Scopus®. It is a product of Elsevier, indexing more than 19,500 journals, conference proceedings, and patents from life, health, physical and social sciences, and humanities, with coverage exceeding that of WoS by 20% (12). All MEDLINE-indexed journals are automatically indexed by Scopus. Access to full-texts of the indexed journals is available through the links to publishers' websites or through the ScienceDirect® interface for Elsevier journals. Citations recorded in Scopus are used for calculation of the journal h index, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and some other metrics, gaining popularity as alternatives to JIF, particularly for journals not listed in JCR (13).
Perhaps the main advantage of Scopus is the coverage of a large number of non-English sources across most subject categories, which makes it especially attractive for publishers from non-mainstream science countries. The limitations of Scopus are that it is relatively new to the publishing market (launched in 2004), most of its references are from 1996 onwards and rapidly updated information is predominantly available for top-rank and Elsevier journals.
Undoubtedly, advancing skills in information retrieval from the databases is a driver for improved individual and institutional research performance. Performing simultaneous searches through the above mentioned large databases may allow us to overcome the inherent limitations of each one and add to the quality of writing, reviewing and editing. In fact, leading publishers support their reviewers by offering access to multiple databases, which is particularly important for avoiding duplicate or plagiarised publications and for processing information from relevant references more comprehensively. For science editors, knowledge of indexing criteria, of the advantages and limitations of databases as well as continuous efforts to expand and maintain the visibility of their journals in the highly prestigious databases can secure a good standing and an opportunity to publish articles which contribute to the advancement of global science (14).
16 citations
"Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..." refers background in this paper
...The past five decades have witnessed the so-called data deluge and publication explosion across all branches of science (1)....
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01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The multidisciplinary Web of Science® (WoS), in particular the WoS Century of Science archive, and some other databases enable tracking historical papers published before 1960, and applying bibliometrics to historical papers may require careful consideration of a large proportion of erroneous citations.
Abstract: The multidisciplinary Web of Science® (WoS), in particular the WoS Century of Science archive, and some other databases enable tracking historical papers published before 1960. With historical papers we enter an area of completely different publication and citation culture. There are a number of factors making the search for historical papers a daunting task: limited coverage of journals, limitations of specific subject fields, complex author names, complicated journal titles, database errors, etc. Applying bibliometrics to historical papers, ie counting citations as a measure of the impact, may require careful consideration of a large proportion of erroneous citations. It is also necessary to apply time adjustment of the citation counts.
15 citations
"Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..." refers background in this paper
...Distinguishing features of the WoS database are high selectivity and coverage of historical papers expanded to 1900 for social sciences and other disciplines (5)....
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: The example of the Croatian Medical Journal shows that it is possible to get out of the scientific periphery if editors have a clear vision and willingness to work really hard.
Abstract: A b s t r a c t: Scientific journals play an important role in the transfer of scientific information, and international visibility is a prerequisite for fulfilling this role. However, entering international bibliographic databases is a major challenge for the journals from the so-called scientific periphery. These journals have an unfavourable starting position because of the small number of manuscripts received, an insufficient pool of reviewers, the low quality of published articles, and poor international visibility, all of which reduce the pool of potential authors and close a "vicious circle of inadequacy". To break this circle, editors have to make a great effort to improve basic journal publishing standards, especially timeliness; to find a "niche" for their journal; to increase the international diversity of the Editorial Board; and to actively seek for authors and help them to improve the quality of their manuscripts. The example of the Croatian Medical Journal (Zagreb, Croatia) shows that it is possible to get out of the scientific periphery if editors have a clear vision and willingness to work really hard.
12 citations
"Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..." refers background in this paper
...The strict selection criteria result in the inclusion of a small number of influential journals (about 10% of the annual applications) and elimination of indexed journals with no or substantially decreased citations in WoS (7)....
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TL;DR: The widespread availability of medical articles on the internet has made plagiarism a common practice among some students and this habit makes it easy to identify the culprits.
Abstract: EDITOR—The widespread availability of medical articles on the internet has made plagiarism a common practice among some students.1 Most plagiarisers are keen to find short cuts—hence the popularity of cutting and pasting text from the internet rather than laboriously copying from textbooks or articles. This habit, however, makes it easy to identify the …
9 citations
"Multidisciplinary bibliographic dat..." refers background in this paper
...The comprehensiveness and easy accessibility of Google searches can be used to detect plagiarised sentences and larger portions of text, particularly in the absence of a specialised plagiarism-detecting software (15)....
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