ITMO Authors

Let's untangle Web of the Science

2024-05-03 14:30
The Web of Science brand is well-known, but not everyone knows that it is not only a search platform. It combines several full-text and abstract databases of peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Note:In 2022, Clarivate (owns WoS) froze collaboration with Russian universities. We wrote about the functions that remained available.

What does Web of Science consist of?

Let's start with the Web of Science Core Collection. This database contains articles from the most influential journals, as well as conference proceedings, books and open access documents.
The citation indexes included in the Core Collection are available on the Master Journal List page. You can access it from the WoS platform, selecting the tab in the Products section:
Then go to Downloads.
You can see the latest update of the information and the current citation indexes:
  1. Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).
  2. Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
  3. Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI)
  4. Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
Note: The Master Journal List is a tool that can help find the journal you seek using the indexes hosted on the Web of Science platform.
A complete list of all Web of Science resources can be found on the official Clarivate website in the Related Products section.
There are several categories of resources in this list:
  • regional bases
Arabic Citation Index (ARCI) provides access to abstracts and citations of scientific articles published in Arabic journals. The search can be performed in Arabic and English.
Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) contains research and citation data from China. You can search for the information in Chinese and English.
SciELO Citation Index is an index of over 1,000 open access journals published in Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, Portugal and South Africa. Searching is possible in English and in the native language of each publication.
KCI-Korean Journal Database provides a comprehensive overview of the most influential regional studies from South Korea.
  • scientific areas databases
BIOSIS Citation Index is a review of research in life sciences.
Data Citation Index is a multi-subject resource that includes 449 repositories, more than 13 million data sets, more than 1.5 million research data and more than 378 thousand software.
Biological Abstracts includes abstracts of articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals in the fields of biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, preclinical and experimental medicine, pharmacology, zoology, agriculture and veterinary medicine.
BIOSIS Previews combines life sciences journals from Biological Abstracts with additional, non-journal materials from Biological Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings).
Zoological Record is the world's oldest continuous database of animal biology.
Food Science & Technology Abstracts (FSTA) provides comprehensive coverage of basic and applied research in food science and food technology.
CABI: CAB Abstracts and Global Health provides access to articles related to the applied life sciences, including agriculture, ecology, veterinary medicine, nutrition, and public health research and practice.
MEDLINE contains millions of journal articles in all fields of life sciences, biomedicine, bioengineering, public health, clinical care, and plant and animal sciences.
  • databases of various types of information
Preprint Citation Index (PCI) – covers preprints from the leading repositories:
  1. arXiv: physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical and systems engineering, economics
  2. bioRxiv: biology
  3. medRxiv: medical, clinical and allied health sciences
  4. chemRxiv: chemistry and related fields
  5. Preprints.org: interdisciplinary, covers natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and the arts.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Citation Index (PQDT) is the world's most comprehensive collection of interdisciplinary dissertations.
Current Contents Connect provides access to full tables of contents, abstracts and bibliographic information from more than 10,000 international journals in all subject areas since 1998.
Derwent Innovations Index is a patent database in the field of chemical, electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering industries.

Additional Web of Science tools

Besides access to the platform Clarivate offers complementary tools by additional subscriptions :
  • Journal Citation Reports (JCR) - Clarivate's annual report that provides all the data you need to evaluate journals. They use a wide range of metrics available in Journal Citation Reports, including the Journal Impact Factor (JIF).
  • Essential Science Indicators (ESI) provides online access to the unique collection of statistics and scientific trend data in the Web of Science Core Collection.
  • The InCites analytical system is a tool for assessing the contribution of educational and scientific institutions. It aggregates and analyzes the information about selected papers, journals, authors, organizations and countries, providing scientometric data for further use.
Currently WoS has abandonded the Russian audience, so the tools described above, unfortunately, are no longer available.
Databases