silent changes in WoS

Thu Feb 5 11:08:01 EST 2009

It is interesting what Thomson will make with the next edition of JCR, when
it appears in June. Either they should change the text of methodology of IF
calculations (add "Proceedings papers" to the citable items), or IFs will
loose their continuity from 2007 to 2008 (e.g. some of the 2006 papers will
be "citable" in 2007 IFs and non-citable in 2008 IFs calculations). It is
especially important for journals with high share of "proceedings papers".

Somehow, the change to the WoS content is rather important (e.g. many of us,
I suppose, limit their investigations to this or that document type), so it
is natural to expect a clear and detailed explanation from Thomson what's
going on and what will be in the future.

Kind regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir Pislyakov 
Assistant Director for Electronic Resources Management 
Higher School of Economics Library 
20 Myasnitskaya street 
Moscow, 101000 
Russia 
Tel.: +7 (495) 6213785
Fax: +7 (495) 6287931
E-mail: pislyakov at hse.ru 
URL: http://library.hse.ru 

=============
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:23:34 +0000, Craig, Iain - Oxford
<iain.craig at WILEY.COM> wrote:

>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
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>
>>From what I can see, the number of citable items doesn't change;
proceedings papers are now being added to the numbers of articles and
reviews. So the net effect on JCR metrics should be neutral.
>
>Iain
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Juan Gorraiz
>Sent: 05 February 2009 15:04
>To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] silent changes in WoS
>
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
>Dear Vladimir,
>
>this is not only an ususual thing, but a very sensititive issue!
>The value of many indicators based on number of articles (like Impact
>Factor, etc) may then change abruptly!!!
>
>Kind regards,
>Juan
>
>**********************************************
>Dr. Juan Gorraiz
>University of Vienna
>Library and archive services
>Bibliometrics Department
>Boltzmanngasse 5
>A-1090 Wien
>
>Tel.:
>+43-1-4277-27609
>+43-66460277-27609
>Fax:
>+43-1-4277-27650
>mailto:
>juan.gorraiz at univie.ac.at
>**********************************************
>
>http://personalabteilung.univie.ac.at/index.php?id=10896
>Vladimir Pislyakov schrieb:
>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>
>> Dear Iain,
>>
>> Thank you, I tried to test it on several years and this method seems to
>> produce results very close to the figures obtained earlier. It means that in
>> October 2008 about 12% of "Articles" changed their document type to
>> "Proceedings Paper", unusual thing.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Vladimir
>>
>> Vladimir Pislyakov
>> Assistant Director for Electronic Resources Management
>> Higher School of Economics Library
>> 20 Myasnitskaya street
>> Moscow, 101000
>> Russia
>> Tel.: +7 (495) 6213785
>> Fax: +7 (495) 6287931
>> E-mail: pislyakov at hse.ru
>> URL: http://library.hse.ru
>>
>> ===============
>> On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 12:40:29 +0000, Craig, Iain - Oxford
>> <iain.craig at WILEY.COM> wrote:
>>
>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>>
>>> Dear Vladimir
>>>
>>> If you extend your search to include document type = proceedings papers,
>> you should recover your missing papers.
>>> With best wishes
>>>
>>> Iain
>>>
>>>
>>> Iain Craig
>>> Research & Analysis Group
>>>
>>> Wiley-Blackwell
>>> John Wiley & Sons Ltd
>>> 9600 Garsington Road
>>> Oxford, OX4 2DQ
>>> United Kingdom
>>>
>>> E-mail: iain.craig at wiley.com
>>> Phone: +44 (0)1865 476301
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Vladimir Pislyakov
>>> Sent: 05 February 2009 11:38
>>> To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>>> Subject: [SIGMETRICS] silent changes in WoS
>>>
>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>>
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>
>>> Have anyone noticed changes of the publication indicators in the Web of
>>> Science databases when they transformed "ISI Proceedings" into "Conference
>>> Proceedings Citation Index" (now a part of the WoS)?
>>>
>>> For example. Before this transformation, in September 2008, we counted
>>> number of Russian papers of the type "Article" published in 2006 (in SCIE
>>> and SSCI databases). It was 23367. After that, in November (transformation
>>> of the Proceeedings took place in the middle of October) the same search
>>> produced a much smaller figure. Now the same search string
>>>
>>> (CU=Russia) AND (PY=2006) AND Document Type=(Article)
>>>
>>> produces just 20601 documents.
>>>
>>> It may be suggested that some of the documents have changed their "Document
>>> Type" field in the process of merging of new Proceedings Index, and so
>>> "Articles" got some other type.
>>>
>>> It is very sad for us, because every year we publish in print statistics on
>>> Russian publication output by document types and these changes result in the
>>> loss of coherence of our yearly data. Have someone else confronted these
>>> silent changes in WoS? Is there any way to overcome these inconsistencies?
>>> There is even no note on WoK platfrom regarding these changes.
>>>
>>> Vladimir Pislyakov
>>> Assistant Director for Electronic Resources Management
>>> Higher School of Economics Library
>>> 20 Myasnitskaya street
>>> Moscow, 101000
>>> Russia
>>> Tel.: +7 (495) 6213785
>>> Fax: +7 (495) 6287931
>>> E-mail: pislyakov at hse.ru
>>> URL: http://library.hse.ru
>>>
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>
>
>--
>**********************************************
>Dr. Juan Gorraiz
>
>University of Vienna
>Library and archive services
>Bibliometrics Department
>
>Boltzmanngasse 5
>A-1090 Wien
>
>Tel.:
>+43-1-4277-27609
>+43-66460277-27609
>Fax:
>+43-1-4277-27650
>mailto:
>juan.gorraiz at univie.ac.at
>**********************************************
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>This email (and any attachment) is confidential, may be legally privileged
and is intended solely for the
>use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the
intended recipient please do
>not disclose, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have
received this message in error please
>tell us by reply and delete all copies on your system.
>
>Although this email has been scanned for viruses you should rely on your
own virus check as the sender
>accepts no liability for any damage arising out of any bug or virus
infection. Please note that email
>traffic data may be monitored and that emails may be viewed for security
reasons.
>
>Blackwell Publishing Limited is a private limited company registered in
England with registered number 180277.
>
>Registered office address: The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West
Sussex, PO19 8SQ.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------