Web of Science

{{Short description|Online subscription index of citations}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox bibliographic database

| title = Web of Science | image = 275px | caption = | producer = Clarivate  | history = {{start date and age|1997}} | languages = | providers = | cost = | disciplines = Science, social science, arts, humanities (supports 256 disciplines) | depth = Citation indexing, author, topic title, subject keywords, abstract, periodical title, author's address, publication year | formats = Articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, proceedings (journals and book-based), technical papers | temporal = 1900–present | geospatial = | number = {{ubl |79 million (core collection) |171 million (platform) }} | updates = | p_title = | p_dates = | ISSN = | web = {{Official URL}} | titles = }} thumbnail|Logo in 2014  The '''Web of Science''' ('''WoS'''; previously known as '''Web of Knowledge''') is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedings, and other documents in various academic disciplines.

Until 1997, it was originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The History of ISI and the work of Eugene Garfield |url=https://clarivate.com/the-institute-for-scientific-information/history-of-isi/ |access-date=13 August 2023 |publisher=Clarivate}}</ref> It is currently owned by Clarivate.<ref>{{cite press release |title=Acquisition of the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business by Onex and Baring Asia Completed |url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/acquisition-of-the-thomson-reuters-intellectual-property-and-science-business-by-onex-and-baring-asia-completed-300337402.html |via=PR Newswire |access-date=13 December 2017}}</ref>

Web of Science currently contains 79 million records in the core collection and 171 million records on the platform.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |last=Matthews |first=Tracy |date=11 November 2016 |title=Web of Science platform: Web of Science: Summary of Coverage |url=https://clarivate.libguides.com/webofscienceplatform/coverage |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413085259/https://clarivate.libguides.com/webofscienceplatform/coverage |archive-date=13 April 2021 |access-date=17 April 2021 |website=LibGuides}}</ref>

==History== A citation index is built on the fact that citations in science serve as linkages between similar research items, and lead to matching or related scientific literature, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, abstracts, etc. In addition, literature that shows the greatest impact in a particular field, or more than one discipline, can be located through a citation index. For example, a paper's influence can be determined by linking to all the papers that have cited it. In this way, current trends, patterns, and emerging fields of research can be assessed. Eugene Garfield, the "father of citation indexing of academic literature",<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jacso |first=Peter |title=The impact of Eugene Garfield through the prism of Web of Science |url=http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/10235/4/ALIS%2057%283%29%20222-247.pdf |journal=Annals of Library and Information Studies |date=September 2010 |volume=57 |page=222 }}</ref> who launched the Science Citation Index, which in turn led to the Web of Science,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Garfield |first1=Eugene |title=The Web of Knowledge: A Festschrift in Honor of Eugene Garfield |last2=Cronin |first2=Blaise |last3=Atkins |first3=Helen Barsky |publisher=Information Today |year=2000 |location=Medford, NJ}}</ref> wrote:

{{Blockquote|Citations are the formal, explicit linkages between papers that have particular points in common. A citation index is built around these linkages. It lists publications that have been cited and identifies the sources of the citations. Anyone conducting a literature search can find from one to dozens of additional papers on a subject just by knowing one that has been cited. And every paper that is found provides a list of new citations with which to continue the search. The simplicity of citation indexing is one of its main strengths.<ref>{{cite book |last=Garfield |first=Eugene |url=http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/ci/chapter1.PDF |title=Citation indexing: Its theory and application in science, technology, and humanities |publisher=Wiley |year=1979 |location=New York |page=1}}</ref>}}

==Coverage== Expanding the coverage of Web of Science, in November 2009 Thomson Reuters introduced ''Century of Social Sciences''. This service contains files which trace social science research back to the beginning of the 20th century,<ref name="InfoToNov2009">{{cite magazine |year=2009 |title=Thomson Reuters introduces century of social sciences |url=http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A211794482&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=mlin_c_marlpl&version=1.0 |access-date=23 June 2010 |magazine=Information Today |page=10 |via=General OneFile |volume=26 |issue=10}}</ref> and Web of Science now has indexing coverage from the year 1900 to the present.<ref name="oview">{{Cite web |year=2010 |title=Overview – Web of Science |url=http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-z/web_of_science |access-date=23 June 2010 |publisher=Thomson Reuters |format=Overview of coverage gleaned from promotional language.}}</ref><ref name="UoOL">{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Sul H. |year=2010 |title=Citation Indexing and ISI's Web of Science |url=http://www.ou.edu/webhelp/librarydemos/isi/ |access-date=23 June 2010 |publisher=The University of Oklahoma Libraries}}</ref> As of February 2017, the multidisciplinary coverage of the Web of Science encompasses: over a billion cited references, 90 million records, covering over 12 thousand high impact journals, and 8.2 million records across 160 thousand conference proceedings, with 15 thousand proceedings added each year.<ref name="Web of Science-2014">{{cite web |title=Web of Knowledge – Real Facts – IP & Science – Thomson Reuters |url=http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/realfacts |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224013916/http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/realfacts |archive-date=24 February 2017 |access-date=24 February 2017}}</ref> The selection is made on the basis of impact evaluations and comprise academic journals, spanning multiple academic disciplines. The coverage includes: the sciences, social sciences, the arts, and humanities, and goes across disciplines.<ref name=oview/><ref name=facts/> However, Web of Science does not index all journals.

There is a significant and positive correlation between the impact factor and CiteScore. However, an analysis by Elsevier, who created the journal evaluation metric CiteScore, has identified 216 journals from 70 publishers to be in the top 10 percent of the most-cited journals in their subject category based on the CiteScore while they did not have an impact factor.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tucker |first=David |date=25 July 2017 |title=CiteScore highlights top-cited journals neglected by other metrics |url=https://www.elsevier.com/connect/citescore-highlights-top-cited-journals-neglected-by-other-metrics |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727183600/https://www.elsevier.com/connect/citescore-highlights-top-cited-journals-neglected-by-other-metrics |archive-date=27 July 2017 |access-date=31 December 2017 |website=Elsevier}}</ref> It appears that the impact factor does not provide comprehensive and unbiased coverage of high-quality journals. Similar results can be observed by comparing the impact factor with the SCImago Journal Rank.

Furthermore, as of September 2014, the total file count of the Web of Science was over 90 million records, which included over 800 million cited references, covering 5.3 thousand social science publications in 55 disciplines.<ref name="facts">{{Cite web |title=The Citation Connection - Real Facts - IP & Science |url=http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924184254/http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/ |archive-date=24 September 2014 |access-date=3 September 2014 |website=Thomson Reuters}}</ref>

Titles of foreign-language publications are translated into English and so cannot be found by searches in the original language.<ref name="harvard-search">{{Cite web |date=3 December 2009 |title=Some Searching Conventions |url=http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/citationindex/#some |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521161422/http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/citationindex/#some |archive-date=21 May 2011 |access-date=23 June 2010 |publisher=President and Fellows of Harvard College}}</ref>

In 2018, the Web of Science started embedding partial information about the open access status of works, using Unpaywall data.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Else |first1=Holly |date=15 August 2018 |title=How Unpaywall is transforming open science |journal=Nature |volume=560 |issue=7718 |pages=290–291 |bibcode=2018Natur.560..290E |doi=10.1038/d41586-018-05968-3 |pmid=30111793 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

While marketed as a global point of reference, Scopus and WoS have been characterised as "structurally biased against research produced in non-Western countries, non-English language research, and research from the arts, humanities, and social sciences".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tennant |first1=Jonathan P. |date=27 October 2020 |title=Web of Science and Scopus are not global databases of knowledge |url=https://ese.arphahub.com/article/51987/ |journal=European Science Editing |volume=46 |doi=10.3897/ese.2020.e51987 |issn=2518-3354 |doi-access=free |article-number=e51987}}</ref>

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, on 11 March 2022, Clarivate – which owns Web of Science – announced that it would cease all commercial activity in Russia and immediately close an office there.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Else |first=Holly |date=14 March 2022 |title=Ukrainian researchers pressure journals to boycott Russian authors |journal=Nature |volume=603 |issue=7902 |page=559 |bibcode=2022Natur.603..559E |doi=10.1038/d41586-022-00718-y |pmid=35288680 |s2cid=247452826 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Citation databases==  <section begin=WoSCore />thumb|Web of Science databases The '''Web of Science Core Collection''' consists of six online indexing databases:<ref name="Web of Science Databases 2018">{{cite web |title=Web of Science Databases |url=https://clarivate.com/products/web-of-science/databases/ |access-date=24 August 2018 |publisher=Clarivate}}</ref><ref name="Web of Science fact book">{{cite web |title=Web of Science fact book |url=https://cdn.clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/d6b7faae-3cc2-4186-8985-a6ecc8cce1ee_Crv_WoS_Upsell_Factbook_A4_FA_LR_edits.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180411042600/https://cdn.clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/d6b7faae-3cc2-4186-8985-a6ecc8cce1ee_Crv_WoS_Upsell_Factbook_A4_FA_LR_edits.pdf |archive-date=11 April 2018 |access-date=24 August 2018 |publisher=Clarivate}}</ref> *Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), previously entitled Science Citation Index, covers more than 9,200 journals across 178 scientific disciplines. Coverage is from 1900 to present day, with over 53 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Science Citation Index Expanded |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-scie/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref> *Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) covers more than 3,400 journals in the social sciences. Coverage is from 1900 to present, with over 9.3 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Social Sciences Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-ssci/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref> *Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) covers more than 1,800 journals in the arts and humanities. Coverage is from 1975 to present, with over 4.9 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arts & Humanities Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-arts-and-humanities-citation-index/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref> *Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) covers more than 7,800 journals in all disciplines. Coverage is from 2005 to present, with over 3 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Emerging Sources Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-esci/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref> *Book Citation Index (BCI) covers more than 116,000 editorially selected books. Coverage is from 2005 to present, with over 53.2 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Book Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-bkci/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref> *Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI) covers more than 205,000 conference proceedings. Coverage is from 1990 to present, with over 70.1 million records<ref>{{Cite web |title=Conference Proceedings Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/webofscience-cpci/ |access-date=26 January 2022 |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref><section end=WoSCore />

===Regional databases=== Since 2008, the Web of Science hosts a number of regional citation indices: *Chinese Science Citation Database, produced in partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was the first indexing database in a language other than English<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chinese Science Citation Database |url=http://thomsonreuters.com/en/products-services/scholarly-scientific-research/scholarly-search-and-discovery/chinese-science-citation-database.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207094830/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/products-services/scholarly-scientific-research/scholarly-search-and-discovery/chinese-science-citation-database.html |archive-date=7 December 2016 |access-date=17 April 2021}}</ref> *SciELO Citation Index, established in 2013, covering Brazil, Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean and South Africa, and an additional 12 countries of Latin America<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thomson Reuters Collaborates with SciELO to Showcase Emerging Research Centers within Web of Knowledge |url=http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2013/thomson-reuters-collaborates-with-scielo-to-showcase-emerging-research-centers-within-web-of-knowledge.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921194031/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2013/thomson-reuters-collaborates-with-scielo-to-showcase-emerging-research-centers-within-web-of-knowledge.html |archive-date=21 September 2015 |access-date=17 April 2021}}</ref> *Korea Citation Index in 2014, with updates from the National Research Foundation of Korea<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thomson Reuters Collaborates with National Research Foundation of Korea to Showcase the Region's Research in Web of Science |work=Thomson Reuters |url=http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2014/tr-collaborates-with-national-research-foundation-of-korea.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160704230624/http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2014/tr-collaborates-with-national-research-foundation-of-korea.html |archive-date=4 July 2016 |access-date=17 April 2021}}</ref> * Russian Science Citation Index in 2015<ref>{{cite web |last=((Reuters)) |first=Thomson |title=RSCI - IP & Science - Thomson Reuters |url=http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/rsci/ |access-date=10 December 2016}}</ref> * Arabic Regional Citation Index in 2020<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arabic Citation Index |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/arabic-citation-index/ |access-date=17 April 2021}}</ref>

===Contents=== The seven citation indices listed above contain references which have been cited by other articles. One may use them to undertake cited reference search, that is, locating articles that cite an earlier, or current publication. One may search citation databases by topic, by author, by source title, and by location. Two chemistry databases, ''Index Chemicus'' and ''Current Chemical Reactions'' allow for the creation of structure drawings, thus enabling users to locate chemical compounds and reactions.

===Abstracting and indexing=== The following types of literature are indexed: scholarly books, peer reviewed journals, original research articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, as well as other items. Disciplines included in this index are agriculture, biological sciences, engineering, medical and life sciences, physical and chemical sciences, anthropology, law, library sciences, architecture, dance, music, film, and theater. Seven citation databases encompasses coverage of the above disciplines.<ref name=UoOL/><ref name="Web of Science-2014" /><ref name=included> {{Cite web |year=2010 |title=Coverage - Web of Science |url=http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-z/web_of_science |access-date=23 June 2010 |publisher=Thomson Reuters}}</ref>

===Other databases and products=== Among other WoS databases are BIOSIS and The Zoological Record, an electronic index of zoological literature that also serves as the unofficial register of scientific names in zoology.

Clarivate owns and markets numerous other products that provide data and analytics, workflow tools, and professional services to researchers, universities, research institutions, and other organizations, such as:<ref>{{Cite web |title=World's largest publisher-neutral citation index and research intelligence platform |url=https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/ |website=Web of Science Group}}</ref>

{{Bulleted list |1={{excerpt|EndNote|only=paragraph|hat=no}} |2={{excerpt|EndNote Click|only=paragraph|hat=no}} |3={{excerpt|Publons|only=paragraph|hat=no}} }} * InCites * Journal Citation Reports * Essential Science Indicators * ScholarOne * Converis

==Limitations in the use of citation analysis== {{further|Citation analysis| San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment}} {{see also|Impact factor#Criticism}}

As with other scientific approaches, scientometrics and bibliometrics have their own limitations. In 2010, a criticism was voiced pointing toward certain deficiencies of the journal impact factor calculation process, based on Thomson Reuters Web of Science, such as: journal citation distributions usually are highly skewed towards established journals; journal impact factor properties are field-specific and can be easily manipulated by editors, or even by changing the editorial policies; this makes the entire process essentially non-transparent.<ref name="Declaration">{{Cite web |title=San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: Putting science into the assessment of research, December 16, 2012 |url=http://am.ascb.org/dora/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20160102023825/http://am.ascb.org/dora/ |archive-date=2 January 2016 |access-date=14 June 2013}}</ref>

Regarding the more objective journal metrics, there is a growing view that for greater accuracy it must be supplemented with article-level metrics and peer-review.<ref name="Declaration" /> Studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank".<ref name="Brembs2018">{{cite journal |last1=Brembs |first1=Björn |year=2018 |title=Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability |journal=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |volume=12 |article-number=37 |doi=10.3389/fnhum.2018.00037 |pmc=5826185 |pmid=29515380 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Thomson Reuters replied to criticism in general terms by stating that "no one metric can fully capture the complex contributions scholars make to their disciplines, and many forms of scholarly achievement should be considered."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thomson Reuters Statement Regarding the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment |url=http://researchanalytics.thomsonreuters.com/statement_re_sfdra/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312073130/http://researchanalytics.thomsonreuters.com/statement_re_sfdra/ |archive-date=12 March 2017 |access-date=14 June 2013 |website=Thomson Reuters}}</ref>

==''Journal Citation Reports''== {{excerpt|Journal Citation Reports}}

==See also==  {{div col|colwidth=30em}} *arXiv *CiteSeerX *CSA databases *Dialog (online database) *Energy Citations Database *Energy Science and Technology Database *ETDEWEB *Google Scholar *HAL *''h''-index *Indian Citation Index *J-Gate *List of academic journal search engines *Materials Science Citation Index *OpenAlex *PASCAL database *PubMed Central *Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale *ResearchGate *Serbian Citation Index *VINITI Database RAS{{div col end}}

==References==  {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== * {{official website}}

==Further reading== * {{Cite book |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.1201/9781315155890/research-analytics-francisco-cantu-ortiz |title=Research Analytics: Boosting University Productivity and Competitiveness through Scientometrics |date=25 October 2017 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-315-15589-0 |editor-last=Cantú-Ortiz |editor-first=Francisco Javier |edition=1st |location=New York City |pages=15–30 |language=en |chapter=2. Web of Science: The First Citation Index for Data Analytics and Scientometrics |doi=10.1201/9781315155890}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Web Of Science}} Category:Bibliographic databases and indexes Category:Online databases Category:Clarivate