ISI Parser Source Files

Wed Feb 27 08:31:17 EST 2008

I am unable to reach this file -> "page cannot found". I would really be
interested in getting the software.

Kind regards,

Isaac

________________________________

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Loet Leydesdorff
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 5:57 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] ISI Parser Source Files

Dear Sheri,

I uploaded a new version of isi.exe at
http://www.leydesdorff.net/software/isi.exe
<blocked::http://www.leydesdorff.net/software/isi.exe>  which includes
the fields SC and ID. If anybody uses it and finds a bug, please, let me
know. 

Best wishes, 

Loet

________________________________

	From: Sheri Ross [mailto:slw04f at fsu.edu] 
	Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 7:13 PM
	To: 'Loet Leydesdorff'
	Subject: ISI Parser Source Files

	Dear Dr. Leydesdorf,

	Hello again from Florida State.  I hope you are well.  I have
been busy downloading data from ISI and parsing it with your program.  I
noticed that the parser does not pull out the keyword and subject
information.  I'd like to try to find a way to include these (SC and DE,
and maybe ID) in the CORE output file.  This type of data has a lot of
analytical potential, I think. 

	Last June, you offered to send me the source files.  Would you
please do so?  I'm certainly not a computer scientist, but I'm hoping it
will be a matter opening a text file, finding the correct pattern of
code, copy/pasting a section, and then replacing the field
abbreviations.  If it's more complicated than that - and it probably is
- then, I'll try to get one of our tech-focused faculty to assist me.

	Also, there are a number of mystery fields with numerical data,
e.g. BP, EP, AR, PG, GA.  I've not been able to match them to anything
in the displayed record, nor have I been able to find a key to explain
what they mean.  Do you know where I might find such a key?

	Thank you very much,

	Sheri

	Sheri V. T. Ross

	Doctoral Candidate

	College of Information

	Florida State University

	slw04f at fsu.edu <mailto:slw04f at fsu.edu> 

________________________________

	From: loet at leydesdorff.net [mailto:leydesdorff at gmail.com] On
Behalf Of Loet Leydesdorff
	Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 1:45 PM
	To: 'Sheri Webber'
	Subject: RE: Please lend your expertise

	Dear Sheri, 

	Take a look at http://www.leydesdorff.net/software/isi . My
program parses out the journal field from the Cited References in a
separate column. I use it often. If it does not work, let me know. Then,
we can make it working.

	The various files are dBase files (old-fashioned), but they can
be related using MS Access. It saves you a lot of cutting-and-pasting
and therefore unavoidably errors. You can have the source files if you
wish.

	With best wishes, 

	Loet

________________________________

	Loet Leydesdorff 
	Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
	Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
	Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 
	loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 

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________________________________

		From: Sheri Webber [mailto:slw04f at fsu.edu] 
		Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 7:29 PM
		To: loet at leydesdorff.net
		Subject: Please lend your expertise

		Dear Professor Leydesdorff,

		I am preparing my dissertation prospectus and would like
to confirm that the means of data collection that I am proposing is the
most efficient available.  I hope you will be kind enough to read the
following few paragraphs and share your expert knowledge of ISI data
sets.  I am a librarian and a social scientist, not a computer
scientist.  However, for my dissertation, I am conducting a quantitative
journal use study to lay the groundwork for future qualitative research.
My few colleagues who have worked with citation data believe that my
approach is the only possible - but, I want to be certain.

		I am interested in the frequency of citations made to
all ISI journals by national groupings of authors (120 countries) each
year over a period of eight.  The journal abbreviations in the cited
works field in the ISI record are matched against those in a journal
table in Access which allows me to query citations (according to country
and/or year) to journals with certain characteristics (place of
publication, for instance).  This all works fine.  The collecting and
organizing of the cited works data however, is time consuming as the raw
article-level ISI file doesn't seem to lend itself to ready analysis-
even simple ones.  

		This is how I proceed.  I conduct a search on country of
author and limited by year.  So, I receive all articles published by
Nigerian authors in 2001, say.  I import the file(s) to Excel, highlight
the cited works column, and copy it.  I then paste it into a text file
and perform several find and replace tasks.  I then import the cited
works data into a new Excel worksheet and do a few sort/cell insert
routines in order to correct for an apparent lack of place holders for
empty fields.  I add a column for the country and the year and the file
is ready for import into Access.  Again, this all works fine - I have
Macros set up.

		It would be optimal to get as much of the original
article level-data into my Access database as possible.  This would
allow me to add finer levels of analysis, querying by institution or
author, for instance.  From the ISI raw data set, I envision a related
database with an author table, an institution table, a citations table
and an article table that links them all together.  However, I don't
know how to get the data from its compressed format in Excel to a more
usable format in Access in a reliable and efficient way.  Like the cited
works field, there are often multiple entries within the cell, and
sequence relationships are also an issue.  I don't have the technical
expertise to do this type of mapping.  Is there software available that
automates this process or perhaps you could suggest a different
approach? 

		Thank you so much for reading all the way through my
email.  If you have any suggestions at all, I would be humbled if you
would share them with me.

		Sheri

		Sheri V. T. Ross

		Doctoral Candidate

		College of Information

		Florida State University

		slw04f at fsu.edu

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