[Thomson Reuters response to Larsen & von Ins (in press)]

Tue May 4 09:05:59 EDT 2010

Please allow me to confirm and expand on Kim's comments. There are two
different datasets being discussed here.  The Science and Engineering
Indicators report produced by the US NSF
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/ , uses journals from Science
Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index data, treated by ipIQ
as Kim explained.  This is not to be confused with the National Science
Indicators
<http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-
z/national_science_indicators>  product, produced by Thomson Reuters,
which is indeed based on the journal set found in Science Citation Index
Expanded (SCIE), as well as Social Science Citation Index, and Arts &
Humanities Citation Index.  

Ann Kushmerick

Manager, Research Evaluation and Bibliometric Data

Thomson Reuters

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Kim Hamilton
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 3:00 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] [Thomson Reuters response to Larsen & von Ins
(in press)]

I have to correct Kevin in his comments about the National Science
Indicators (NSI). Upon first reading the Larsen, et al paper, I too
thought NSI referred to what is reported in the NSF's biennial Science &
Engineering Indicators (SEI), but in fact I believe it is a Thomson
product.

The database on which SEI is built is in fact the SCI, and always has
been, although starting in 1988 fully covered journals in the SSCI were
added (caveat: journals in what we categorize as Professional Fields
(Mgmt & Bus, Educ, Law, etc) have not been included as NSF does not
track those subfields). And, to correct Larsen, et al, only Articles,
Notes, and Reviews are counted, not Letters. NSF fully documents what is
included and how counts are made in their SEI reports.

Kevin is correct that the list of journals included in SEI can be
obtained through Lawrence Burton.

Kim Hamilton

SEI principal investigator

ipIQ (dba The Patent Board and formerly CHI Research)

khamilton at patentboard.com

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Kevin Boyack
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 2:26 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] [Thomson Reuters response to Larsen & von Ins
(in press)]

Christina,

Regarding your questions below:

-          Up until 2007, when I was at Sandia, the AISTI group (a group
of national labs and some universities) licensed SCIE (and SSCI ...) and
hosted it at LANL. I would presume that they have not since downgraded
to SCI.

-          Yes, versioning makes a huge difference, and most authors in
info science/bibliometrics seem to know the difference, although some
seem not to.

-          And, the National Science Indicators uses NEITHER the SCI or
SCIE. It uses a hand-picked set of about 5000 journals from the ISI
indexes (curated historically by CHI - Fran Narin's shop - and now by
iPiQ) that was probably very similar to SCI back in the 1970s, and which
is now probably akin to an SCI++, but certainly containing far less than
SCIE. So, the NSI numbers are not easily compared to anything else out
there. If anyone is interested in the exact list of journals used by
NSI, they can contact Lawrence Burton at NSF.

Best regards,

Kevin

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Pikas, Christina K.
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 10:32 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] [Thomson Reuters response to Larsen & von Ins
(in press)]

Ok. This indicates that I'm not the only one who is confused. I only
have access to the online version, not having licensed a CD-ROM for my
analysis work.

-  Apparently it's not correct to say that SCIE is the online version of
SCI.  Is there an offline batch download or mail-a-hard-drive version of
the SCIE? 

- Do the national labs and others that have locally loaded versions get
the SCI or SCIE?

- You all seriously still PRINT the SCI?  Really? Wow. (not a serious
question)

- Presumably which version you're using makes a huge difference to your
analysis and conclusions - do all authors indicate which they're using
(I know some do)?

- Are the National Science Indicators really using SCI or really using
SCIE? I know some European countries use Thomson Reuters data - are they
all using the same data? All SCI, all SCIE, some of each, no one knows?

Christina Pikas

----

Christina K Pikas

Librarian

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Christina.Pikas at jhuapl.edu

(240) 228 4812 (DC area)

(443) 778 4812 (Baltimore area)

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of James Testa
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 11:30 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: [SIGMETRICS]

This is  in response to The rate of growth in scientific publications
and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation Index by Peder
Olsesen Larsen and Markus von Inus1. While I strongly agree that
citation indexes should reflect the current trends in the scholarly
publishing community, I must disagree with their findings because they
are not based on accurate data. 

The Authors have derived their figures and conclusions from the SCI
(Science Citation Index), a subset of the SCIE (Science Citation Index
Expanded).  The SCI is intentionally cultivated to be a relatively small
collection of high impact journals and excellent regional journals.  The
SCIE, on the other hand,  is a comprehensive citation index covering all
science journals selected by Thomson Reuters through its Journal
Selection Process.  Additionally, the authors did not take into account
that conference proceedings are indexed primarily in the CPCI
(Conference Proceedings Citation Index), at a rate of nearly 400,000
records from approximately 12,000 conferences each year. 

I have provided a brief commentary that describes and quantifies the
content of the major indexes in the Web of Science. I would invite the
authors and any others who are interested to view it here
<http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/Citation-Impact-Center/Web-of-Sc
ience-Coverage-Expansion/ba-p/10663> . I welcome any feedback or further
discussion on the subject. 

1.       Larsen, P.O. and vo Ins, M. "The rate of growth in scientific
publications and the decline of coverage provided by Science Citation
Index."  Scientometrics. Online First, published 10 March 2010.   DOI:
10.1007/s11192-010-0202-z
<http://springerlink.metapress.com/content/2531345r116v3660/?p=e51d977a3
0124382bc1888ab01ee9630&pi=26> 

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* * *

James Testa
VP Editorial Development & Publisher Relations

Thomson  Reuters

O +1 215 823 1701

F +1 215 387 4214

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