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The museum of errors/horrors in Scopus

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  • Franceschini, Fiorenzo
  • Maisano, Domenico
  • Mastrogiacomo, Luca

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the Scopus bibliometric database is probably less accurate than one thinks. As a further evidence of this fact, this paper presents a structured collection of several weird typologies of database errors, which can therefore be classified as horrors. Some of them concern the incorrect indexing of so-called Online-First paper, duplicate publications, and the missing/incorrect indexing of references. A crucial point is that most of these errors could probably be avoided by adopting some basic data checking systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Franceschini, Fiorenzo & Maisano, Domenico & Mastrogiacomo, Luca, 2016. "The museum of errors/horrors in Scopus," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 174-182.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:10:y:2016:i:1:p:174-182
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Joost C. F. Winter & Amir A. Zadpoor & Dimitra Dodou, 2014. "The expansion of Google Scholar versus Web of Science: a longitudinal study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1547-1565, February.
    2. Franceschini, Fiorenzo & Maisano, Domenico & Mastrogiacomo, Luca, 2014. "Scientific journal publishers and omitted citations in bibliometric databases: Any relationship?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 751-765.
    3. Anne-Wil Harzing, 2013. "Document categories in the ISI Web of Knowledge: Misunderstanding the Social Sciences?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 23-34, January.
    4. Valderrama-Zurián, Juan-Carlos & Aguilar-Moya, Remedios & Melero-Fuentes, David & Aleixandre-Benavent, Rafael, 2015. "A systematic analysis of duplicate records in Scopus," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 570-576.
    5. Fiorenzo Franceschini & Domenico Maisano & Luca Mastrogiacomo, 2015. "Influence of omitted citations on the bibliometric statistics of the major Manufacturing journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1083-1122, June.
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