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A Comparison between Two Main Academic Literature Collections: Web of Science and Scopus Databases

Author

Listed:
  • Aghaei Chadegani, Arezoo
  • Salehi, Hadi
  • Md Yunus, Melor
  • Farhadi, Hadi
  • Fooladi, Masood
  • Farhadi, Maryam
  • Ale Ebrahim, Nader

Abstract

Nowadays, the world’s scientific community has been publishing an enormous number of papers in different scientific fields. In such environment, it is essential to know which databases are equally efficient and objective for literature searches. It seems that two most extensive databases are Web of Science and Scopus. Besides searching the literature, these two databases used to rank journals in terms of their productivity and the total citations received to indicate the journals impact, prestige or influence. This article attempts to provide a comprehensive comparison of these databases to answer frequent questions which researchers ask, such as: How Web of Science and Scopus are different? In which aspects these two databases are similar? Or, if the researchers are forced to choose one of them, which one should they prefer? For answering these questions, these two databases will be compared based on their qualitative and quantitative characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Aghaei Chadegani, Arezoo & Salehi, Hadi & Md Yunus, Melor & Farhadi, Hadi & Fooladi, Masood & Farhadi, Maryam & Ale Ebrahim, Nader, 2013. "A Comparison between Two Main Academic Literature Collections: Web of Science and Scopus Databases," MPRA Paper 46898, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Mar 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:46898
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolfgang Glänzel & Balázs Schlemmer & András Schubert & Bart Thijs, 2006. "Proceedings literature as additional data source for bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(3), pages 457-473, September.
    2. Gaby Haddow & Paul Genoni, 2010. "Citation analysis and peer ranking of Australian social science journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(2), pages 471-487, November.
    3. Bar-Ilan, Judit & Levene, Mark & Lin, Ayelet, 2007. "Some measures for comparing citation databases," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 26-34.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    web of science; scopus; database; citations; provenance; coverage; searching; citation tracking; impact factor; indexing; h-index; researcher profile; researcher ID;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General
    • Z00 - Other Special Topics - - General - - - General
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

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