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

Wed May 5 02:12:19 EDT 2010

Dear Kevin, 

Previously, it was the case that the list used for the SEI was held constant
for analytical reasons during long periods of time (1973-1988). Is this
still the case? (In the 1980s we had a fierce debate about "The decline of
British science" related to this issue because the UK declined in a fixed
list, but was stable in the dynamic one of the SCI -- without expansion.)

Best wishes, 

Loet

  _____  

Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 

  _____  

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of
ann.kushmerick at THOMSONREUTERS.COM
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 3:06 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] [Thomson Reuters response to Larsen & von Ins (in
press)]

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
<http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/science_products/a-z/na
tional_science_indicators> 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-Scienc
e-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:
<http://springerlink.metapress.com/content/2531345r116v3660/?p=e51d977a30124
382bc1888ab01ee9630&pi=26> 10.1007/s11192-010-0202-z

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.

James Testa
VP Editorial Development & Publisher Relations

Thomson  Reuters

O +1 215 823 1701

F +1 215 387 4214

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