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Scopus

Update November 2004

American University of Beirut

Presented by: Amanda Harta.hart@elsevier.com

Date: 11 November 2004

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“Only librarians like to search;

everyone else likes to find.”

- Roy Tennant, California Digital

Library

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How users are searching

Via the general Web Growing in popularity No integration with library Limited access to bulk of relevant

scientific information

Users expect: Searching to be easy To always find results To instantly access content

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Why did we develop Scopus? Scopus was created to improve on the current way of

searching and selecting information, to enable new explorations and serendipity and to interact efficiently with other information sources in order to provide direct access to full text.

The focus of Scopus is on superior support of the

literature research process - by finding relevant

articles quickly and investigating current research

relationships through citation information

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American University of Beirut:About our Partnership

AUB recruited as Scopus Development Partner in 2003 Access to Beta version from Dec 15 2003 Access to version 1 from Feb 21 2004 Several End User tests at each institution AUB has been an excellent partner:

Internal promotion of Scopus to end-users Appointment of Student Ambassadors Announcements and information Providing suggestions and feedback from

users

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Scopus today

Facilitates major tasks researchers have: Find new articles in a familiar subject field Find author-related information

articles by a specific author information that would help in evaluating a specific author

Staying up-to-date Getting an overview or understanding of a new

subject field

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Definitions:

records with abstracts (1966 onwards)

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Records with abstracts &

references (from 1996)

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Find (new) articles in

familiar subject field

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Find (new) articles in

familiar subject field

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Including results from

scientific web

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Author search Improved full-text links New library integration features ‘Refine results’ box will offer overview and management

of all results (used to just be the first 1000) Some bugs in export feature have been cleaned up, can

now also export number of citations

New functionality just released

- as a direct result of user feedback

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Find author-related information

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Improved full-text links & library

integration Entire reload of our copy of CrossRef database

Improved quality Improved links

Additional journals linked through algorithmic linking Scopus’ knowledgebase of links to journals which are not in

CrossRef - includes many OAI journals

Department level functionalities, for example Library banner Interlibrary loan Linking set-up

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First version of citation tool Volume/issue browse My List Patents

Early next year – result of user feedback

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Major tasks researchers have

Find new articles in a familiar subject field Find author-related information

articles by a specific author contact information information that would help in evaluating a specific

author

Stay up-to-date Getting an overview or understanding of a new

subject field

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Identify the author of interest

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Citation overview

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Next step: exclude self citations

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What didn’t work

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User responses during user tests

“I like the breakdown over the years, to see pattern, trends” “Important to rate how well our group is doing” “The option to remove self-citations improves this features” “I would have used this to decide where I want to go to grad

school by comparing different professors” “I like it as a tool to review candidates or grant writing” “I can now see the number of citations per article” “Nice to decide myself what to analyse”

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Volume/issue browse

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My List

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Patents via Scirus search

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Scopus coverage - end of 2004

14,000 titles (start year anywhere between ’66-’04)

4,000 publishers Records with abstracts since 1966 Records with references since 1996

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Content types covered 14,000 titles, composed of:

12,850 academic journals including 1,000 Medline Unique titles including 400 Open Access titles

750 conference proceedings 400 trade publications

27 million records Adding 1.3 million per year

230 million references

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Coverage per subject area

4,500 Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering 5,900 Life and Health Sciences 2,700 Social Sciences, Psychology and Economics 2,500 Biological, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences 50 General Sciences

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Geographical distribution

of publications

36%

3%9%

52%

North America

South America

APAC

EMEA

64% of Scopus titles are non-US based.

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How did we choose 14,000 titles?

Feedback showed that current all-science products insufficient

Users want to skip, not miss information As a consequence

we talked to publishers analysed other databases discussed with experts and users

And concluded with our list of 14,000 titles

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How did we decide what

references to add?

Designed to offer optimum support based on

user behaviour References from 1996 onwards fulfils 86% of

actual usage Abstract records with links to full-text as far back

as 1966

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Content Selection Committee is made up of the

20 Scopus advisory board members and 10

subject librarians. The Committee is responsible for:

Suggesting new titles for Scopus; Evaluating and giving approval to the Scopus title list

on a yearly basis; Contributing to the overall content strategy.

Adding new titles

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www.scopus.com

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If there was a tool that could find the information you need - and maybe a few surprises along the way - you’d use it

www.scopus.com