silent changes in WoS

Thu Feb 5 11:36:43 EST 2009

Many regular journals are publishing “proceedings papers” in special 
issues. If these papers were considered before as “articles” and have 
been consequently changed to “proceedings papers”, there may be changes 
in the JCR Metrics! If they were not changed, they are differently 
processed from the other proceedings publications!

JCR Metrics is perhaps not so strongly influenced but a lot of analyses 
performed by users (and considering the category “articles”) may not be 
anymore reproducible and so lacking of scientific character.

Another problem is how the JCR Metrics will be defined in the future, 
including or not the Proceedings. However, as we already reported, 
citations coming from some Proceedings (for example Proceedings of the 
IEEE and some other Series) were always (!) considered calculating the 
Impact Factor of the core Journals but not consequently (only citations 
from “some” issues indexed in WoS).
Now, there is an opportunity to consider consequently all the citations 
coming from the Proceedings. But this is also a controversial subject: 
Is then the selection criteria (used to define the core ISI-journals) 
also valid for the Proceedings (even if they never before had IFs)?

Kind regards
Juan

**********************************************

Vladimir Pislyakov schrieb:
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> 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):
>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>
>>>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.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

-- 
**********************************************
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
**********************************************