Web of Science vs. Scopus

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Background 3 Web of Science 3.1 WoS - Benefits & weaknesses 4 Scopus 4.1 Scopus - Benefits & weaknesses 5 Google scholar 6 References

Introduction

See also Bibliometrics and Google scholar

Although the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus (Elsevier) are seen as synonymous tools by many and do some of the same things - such as displaying cited papers and determining journal impact factors - the two databases are rather different tools.

For instance, while WoS and Scopus both employ principles of bibliometrics each has unique features and content to offer the scholarly community. In terms of coverage, Scopus has about 1/3 more content internationally (15,000 journals) but it always has a clearly-identifiable Eurocentric (Elsevier) bias; on the other hand, WoS covers about ~10,000 interdisciplinary journals and an American bias.

Many academic libraries only have access to either Scopus or WoS - rarely both (UBC has the latter).

Background

Scholars and researchers around the world are often required to find articles citing their papers, reference chapters in books or entire monographs. This area of bibliometrics - called cited reference searching - is a way to track interest in the work of major authors in a specified field. It may be viewed as a quantitative method of impact of scholars in their chosen field - and even a kind of ego-surfing.

One of the best sources for this type of searching is Scientific Thomson's Web of Science (WoS). As a proprietary tool it requires a subscription to access it. The Web of Science (WoS) is a multidisciplinary database that contains the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Another important proprietary tool for cited reference searching is Scopus (Elsevier). Developed by Elsevier, it provides cited reference searching for scientific, technical, medical and social sciences literature.

A number of EBSCO databases offer cited reference searching but their coverage will not be as comprehensive as the Wos. No single tool tracks all occurrences of every citation. Databases that offer cited reference searching often focus on academic journals and those from the deep web (see grey literature). As a result, some important seminal articles and monographs may not be included.

Web of Science

Scientific Thomson's Web of Science (WoS) provides seamless access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from:

• 850,000 fully indexed journal articles have been added to WoS; some records back to early 20th century
• ~10,000 journals from ~265 multidisciplinary categories; cover-to-cover indexing.
• ~19 million citations in total
• Complete backfiles to 1945 however put total at ~37 million records
• Cited reference and chemical structure searches
• Author identification tools
• Analysis capabilities
• Direct links to your full-text collections

WoS also provides unique search methods and cited searching. Users can navigate forward and backward through the literature, and search all disciplines and time periods. Users can navigate to print and electronic collections using institutional linkresolvers.

Web of Science (WoS) is searchable with complete bibliographic data, cited reference data and navigation and links to full text.

• Web of Science tutorial
• WoS - detail on coverage

WoS - Benefits & weaknesses

• Only a slight difference in coverage between Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) and a strong overlap.
• WoS covers science and arts/humanities.
• WoS' search interface is improving but not as useful as Scopus.
• WoS has more options for citation analysis for institutions.
• Substantial differences exist between WoS, Scopus and Google scholar - the latter delivers instant results for searchers. This can (subconsciously) be a major reason for users to choose it over other tools.
• Google scholar is much larger than either WoS or Scopus but it has been shown to have fewer references to selected articles. However, GS' unique coverage and web crawling techniques means that it has been shown to have five (5) times as many unique cited items.

Scopus

Elsevier's Scopus claims to be the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources.

• Scopus has ~33 million records; 16 million include references back to 1996 (75% have references);
• 17 million pre-1996 records go back to 1841.
• 15,000 peer-reviewed journals from more than 4,000 publishers
  • over 1200 Open Access journals
  • 500 conference proceedings
  • over 600 trade publications
  • 200 book series
• Results from 386 million scientific web pages
• 22 million patent records from 5 patent offices
• Seamless links to full-text articles and other library resources
• Innovative tools that review search results and refine to most relevant hits
• Alerts to keep you up-to-date on new articles matching your search query, or by favorite author

Elsevier's Scopus covers 250 million quality web sources, including 22 million patents. Web sources are searched via Scirus, and include author homepages, university sites and resources such as preprint servers and OAI compliant resources.

• Scopus - more detail on what it does and its coverage. 2008
• Scopus PDF coverage. 2007

Scopus - Benefits & weaknesses

• Scopus permits search by affiliation; by zip code and institutional name(s).
• Scopus covers over 15,000 journals, versus 10,000 in WoS.
• Scopus is 5-15% smaller prior to 1996, and 20-45% larger than WoS after 1996. For publications before 1996, the coverage offered by Scopus for the various subjects is uneven.
• 95% of Scopus' database consists of records of descriptions of articles.
• Before 1996, the number of non-journal articles in Scopus is low; this rises to about 10% by 2005.
• For recent years, the proportion of non-journal articles is significantly higher in Scopus than in WoS (4%).
• Scopus is a more versatile search tool; clear advantages in functionality;
  • default, refine, format of results of citation tracker and author identification.
• Scopus covers mostly scientific fields; relatively weak in sociology, physics and astronomy.

Google scholar

Google scholar is easy-to-search and provides quick entry into the grey literature. It also provides easy access to cited papers though Jacso has written about GS' poor quality control and inflated citation counts. A number of Impact factors - such as the h-index - are now determined by using Google scholar data despite its many flaws and limitations.

Although Google scholar provides access to other papers through its cited by feature it is generally seen to be a browsing tool and not a proper bibliometric tool like Wos or Scopus. Bibliometric searcing requires a proper database that employes cited reference search features. Finding occurrences of authors and journal articles in footnotes and bibliographies in print or digital form is the main purpose of these tools.

References

1. Bar-Ilan J. Which h-index? a comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics 2008b 74(2):257-271.
2. Bosman J, Mourik I, van Rasch M, Sieverts E, Verhoeff H. Scopus reviewed and compared: the coverage and functionality of the citation database Scopus, including comparisons with Web of Science and Google Scholar. Utrecht University Library. 2006
3. Falagas ME, Pitsouni E, Malietzis GA. Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: strengths and weaknesses. FASEB Journal. 2008;22:338-342.
4. Fingerman S. Web of Science and Scopus: current features and capabilities. Issues in Sci Tech Libr Fall 2006
5. Jacsó P. As we may search – comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases. Current Science 2005 Nov 10;89(9):1537-47.
6. Kloda LA. Use Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science for comprehensive citation tracking. Evidence Based Lib Info Pract 2007;2(3):87-90.
7. Matthew EF, Eleni IP, George AM, Georgios P. Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: strengths and weaknesses. FASEB 2008;22:338-42.
8. Mayr P, and Walter A. An exploratory study of Google Scholar. E-Prints in Library and Information Science 2007 Aug 21.
9. Meho LI, Yang K. Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of Science vs. Scopus and Google Scholar. 2007
10. Meho LI, Rogers Y. Citation counting, citation ranking, and h-index of human-computer interaction researchers: A comparison between Scopus and Web of Science. 2008
11. Schroeder R. Pointing users toward citation searching: using Google Scholar and Web of Science. portal: Libraries and the Academy 2007;7(2): 243-248.