Emerging Sources Citation Index

Emerging Sources Citation Index
Name	Emerging Sources Citation Index
Producer	Clarivate
Country	United Kingdom
Launched	2015
Disciplines	Multidisciplinary
Formats	Journal articles, conference proceedings
Access	Subscription

Emerging Sources Citation Index

The Emerging Sources Citation Index is a citation database introduced to expand coverage of regional, interdisciplinary, and non-English publications. It complements established citation products by providing discovery and citation data for titles outside the core indexes while interfacing with platforms used by libraries, researchers, and publishers across institutions like Harvard University, University of Oxford, Max Planck Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and National Institutes of Health.

Overview

The index was created by Clarivate to address gaps between established collections such as Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index, while serving stakeholders including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and research funders like the European Commission and National Science Foundation. It aggregates metadata and citation links for journals, conference proceedings, and other serials affiliated with entities such as American Chemical Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Royal Society, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Indian Council of Social Science Research, and regional publishers in markets like Brazil, South Africa, India, China, and Japan.

History and Development

The product was announced amid debates involving organizations such as Web of Science Group stakeholders and competitors including Scopus and institutions like Thomson Reuters that previously curated citation resources. Its rollout coincided with strategic shifts by companies such as Clarivate Analytics and policy changes influenced by national research assessment exercises like Research Excellence Framework and Leiden Ranking considerations. Early expansion phases involved partnerships and responses to critiques from editorial bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics and associations including the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.

Coverage and Selection Criteria

Selection mechanisms drew on editorial evaluations conducted by panels with experts from universities including Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Tokyo, Monash University, and subject societies such as the American Physical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry. Criteria addressed bibliographic standards, peer review practices, publication regularity, and international editorial conventions referenced by organizations like Council of Science Editors and Directory of Open Access Journals. The index aimed to include journals from regions represented by institutions such as Universidade de São Paulo, University of Cape Town, Peking University, Seoul National University, and University of Toronto while excluding predatory outlets flagged by watchdogs including Beall's List advocates and policy units in World Health Organization-related scholarship.

Indexing Process and Data Content

Metadata ingested into the index mirrors fields used by infrastructures at CrossRef, ORCID, PubMed Central, and DataCite, capturing authorship linked to individual identifiers, affiliations tied to universities like Yale University and University of Melbourne, abstracts, references, and citation relationships connecting works from publishers such as SAGE Publications and Cambridge University Press. Processing pipelines employ quality checks similar to those used by Scopus and utilize controlled vocabularies drawn from authorities including Library of Congress and subject taxonomies used by societies such as the American Mathematical Society. Content types range from original research and reviews to conference proceedings indexed alongside multinational conferences like International Conference on Machine Learning, IEEE International Conference on Communications, and American Chemical Society National Meeting.

Impact and Reception

Reactions from academic libraries, research offices, and publishers were mixed: proponents at institutions including Columbia University and ETH Zurich valued increased discoverability for regional journals, while critics citing evaluators from University College London and commentators writing in outlets tied to Nature (journal) and Science (journal) questioned the implications for bibliometrics and ranking systems such as Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Research funders including Wellcome Trust and national agencies in Australia and Canada monitored how indexing decisions affected assessment metrics and grant evaluation. Editorial boards from learned societies including the Royal Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science engaged in dialogues about indexing transparency and standards.

Comparison with Other Citation Indexes

Compared with products like Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, and Google Scholar, the index emphasized inclusion of emerging and regional titles over strict citation-impact thresholds used by Journal Citation Reports. It provided different coverage patterns relative to databases maintained by PubMed, EMBASE, and subject repositories such as arXiv and SSRN, with overlap in some titles published by major houses such as Oxford University Press and MIT Press. Libraries and consortia evaluating subscriptions considered trade-offs seen in procurement decisions involving ProQuest and EBSCO Information Services, balancing breadth, metadata richness, and integration with discovery services managed by suppliers like Ex Libris and OCLC.

Category:Citation indexes