IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v1y2007i2p161-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing alternatives to the Web of Science for coverage of the social sciences’ literature

Author

Listed:
  • Norris, Michael
  • Oppenheim, Charles

Abstract

The Web of Science is no longer the only database which offers citation indexing of the social sciences. Scopus, CSA Illumina and Google Scholar are new entrants in this market. The holdings and citation records of these four databases were assessed against two sets of data one drawn from the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise and the other from the International bibliography of the Social Sciences. Initially, CSA Illumina's coverage at journal title level appeared to be the most comprehensive. But when recall and average citation count was tested at article level and rankings extrapolated by submission frequency to individual journal titles, Scopus was ranked first. When issues of functionality, the quality of record processing and depth of coverage are taken into account, Scopus and Web of Science have a significant advantage over the other two databases. From this analysis, Scopus offers the best coverage from amongst these databases and could be used as an alternative to the Web of Science as a tool to evaluate the research impact in the social sciences.

Suggested Citation

  • Norris, Michael & Oppenheim, Charles, 2007. "Comparing alternatives to the Web of Science for coverage of the social sciences’ literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 161-169.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:161-169
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2006.12.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157706000228
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2006.12.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anton J. Nederhof, 2006. "Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A Review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(1), pages 81-100, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gérard Charreaux, 2011. "«Cité ou oublié»:les supports de la notoriété des professeurs en sciences de gestion vus à travers Google Scholar," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 14(4), pages 129-166, December.
    2. Metwaly Ali Mohamed Eldakar, 2019. "Who reads international Egyptian academic articles? An altmetrics analysis of Mendeley readership categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 105-135, October.
    3. Justus Meyer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Standing on the shoulder of giants: the aspect of free-riding in RePEc rankings," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 223-228, February.
    4. Ramón A. Feenstra & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2022. "Philosophers’ appraisals of bibliometric indicators and their use in evaluation: from recognition to knee-jerk rejection," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 2085-2103, April.
    5. Walters, William H., 2017. "Do subjective journal ratings represent whole journals or typical articles? Unweighted or weighted citation impact?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 730-744.
    6. Zekun Wang & Zhaohua Deng & Xiang Wu, 2019. "Status Quo of Professional–Patient Relations in the Internet Era: Bibliometric and Co-Word Analyses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-19, April.
    7. Marianne Hörlesberger & Ivana Roche & Dominique Besagni & Thomas Scherngell & Claire François & Pascal Cuxac & Edgar Schiebel & Michel Zitt & Dirk Holste, 2013. "A concept for inferring ‘frontier research’ in grant proposals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(2), pages 129-148, November.
    8. Christopher Kullenberg & Gustaf Nelhans, 2015. "The happiness turn? Mapping the emergence of “happiness studies” using cited references," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 615-630, May.
    9. Claire Creaser & Charles Oppenheim & Mark A. C. Summers, 2011. "What do UK academics cite? An analysis of references cited in UK scholarly outputs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(3), pages 613-627, March.
    10. Daniela De Filippo & Fernanda Morillo & Borja González-Albo, 2023. "Measuring the Impact and Influence of Scientific Activity in the Humanities and Social Sciences," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, June.
    11. Claudia N. González Brambila & José Luis Olivares-Vázquez, 2021. "Patterns and evolution of publication and co-authorship in Social Sciences in Mexico," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 2595-2626, March.
    12. Andrea Diem & Stefan C. Wolter, 2011. "The Use of Bibliometrics to Measure Research Performance in Education Sciences," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0066, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised May 2013.
    13. Sándor Soós & Zsófia Vida & András Schubert, 2018. "Long-term trends in the multidisciplinarity of some typical natural and social sciences, and its implications on the SSH versus STM distinction," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 795-822, March.
    14. Zoltán Krajcsák, 2021. "Researcher Performance in Scopus Articles ( RPSA ) as a New Scientometric Model of Scientific Output: Tested in Business Area of V4 Countries," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, October.
    15. Geert Campenhout & Tom Caneghem & Steve Uytbergen, 2008. "A comparison of overall and sub-area journal influence: The case of the accounting literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 77(1), pages 61-90, October.
    16. Zhou, Ping & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2011. "Fractional counting of citations in research evaluation: A cross- and interdisciplinary assessment of the Tsinghua University in Beijing," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 360-368.
    17. Tim C. E. Engels & Truyken L. B. Ossenblok & Eric H. J. Spruyt, 2012. "Changing publication patterns in the Social Sciences and Humanities, 2000–2009," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(2), pages 373-390, November.
    18. Alisha Ralph & Akarsh Arora, 2024. "Mapping the literature on decent work: A bibliometric analysis of sustainable development goal 8," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 3937-3952, August.
    19. Aksnes, Dag W. & Rip, Arie, 2009. "Researchers' perceptions of citations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 895-905, July.
    20. Thelwall, Mike & Sud, Pardeep, 2014. "No citation advantage for monograph-based collaborations?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 276-283.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:161-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.