Science Citation Index Expanded
Generated by GPT-5-miniExpansion Funnel Raw 99 → Dedup 0 → NER 0 → Enqueued 0
| Science Citation Index Expanded | |
|---|---|
| Title | Science Citation Index Expanded |
| Producer | Clarivate |
| Former names | Science Citation Index |
| Launched | 1960s (origins) |
| Discipline | Multidisciplinary science |
| Formats | Print, electronic, online |
| Country | United States |
Science Citation Index Expanded is a multidisciplinary citation index produced by Clarivate that tracks citations among scientific journals and other scholarly materials. It builds on earlier citation indexing work to support literature discovery, bibliometric analysis, and research assessment across institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Max Planck Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and University of Oxford. The index underpins widely used metrics associated with organizations like Thomson Reuters (historically), Institute for Scientific Information, National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, and Wellcome Trust.
History
Origins trace to the work of Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute for Scientific Information, who was influenced by projects at University of Pennsylvania and interactions with librarians at Library of Congress, Columbia University, and University of Cambridge. Early citation indexing addressed communities around journals like Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Lancet, and Cell. Ownership and stewardship moved through organizations including Institute for Scientific Information, Thomson Corporation, Thomson Reuters, and later Clarivate Analytics, intersecting with initiatives at National Science Foundation and policy discussions involving Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and European Commission.
Coverage and Content
The database indexes thousands of journals, conference proceedings, and selected books from publishers including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and IEEE. Subject scope encompasses literature cited in outlets such as Journal of the American Chemical Society, Physical Review Letters, Nature Medicine, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Journal of Clinical Investigation, spanning institutions like MIT, Caltech, Johns Hopkins University, Karolinska Institutet, and Peking University. Collection policies reflect editorial selection influenced by standards used by Committee on Publication Ethics, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, World Health Organization, and funders like National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
Indexing and Citation Metrics
Indexing records include citation links among articles, enabling construction of citation networks evaluated in analyses by groups such as Science-Metrix, Evidence-based Research Network, Clarivate, Altmetric (comparative), and teams at University College London and University of California, Berkeley. Metrics derived from the index inform indicators such as journal impact factors historically reported by Journal Citation Reports, and influence assessments at Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings. Citation mapping has been applied in case studies involving researchers at Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Salk Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Rockefeller University, and Riken.
Access and Formats
Access has evolved from print volumes used in libraries at British Library and New York Public Library to electronic platforms operated by Clarivate and integrations with services at ProQuest, EBSCO, WorldCat, and institutional portals at University of Toronto and Australian National University. Formats include tagged bibliographic records consumed by reference managers such as EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley, and by research information systems at Elsevier's Scopus customers and PubMed-linked services. Licensing arrangements involve consortia like JISC and national libraries including National Diet Library and Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Usage in Research Evaluation
Universities and research funders including Royal Society, Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, National Institutes of Health, Australian Research Council, and German Research Foundation have used index-derived indicators in hiring, promotion, and grant review processes. Policymakers at UK Research and Innovation and evaluation frameworks at Helsinki University and National University of Singapore have debated reliance on citation metrics, alongside methodologies advocated by DORA signatories and recommendations from Leiden University scholars. High-profile cases at institutions such as University of California and University of Melbourne illustrate tensions between quantitative measures and peer review traditions exemplified by panels at Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Comparison with Other Citation Databases
Comparisons frequently cite differences with Elsevier's Scopus, Google Scholar (by Google), Dimensions (from Digital Science), and regional databases like 中国知网 and SciELO. Evaluations by teams at Cornell University, University of Edinburgh, University of Amsterdam, Leiden University, and Imperial College London highlight contrasts in coverage, indexing policies, update frequency, and treatment of conference proceedings used in fields represented by ACM and IEEE. Stakeholders including Clarivate, Elsevier, Google, and funding agencies continue methodological work to harmonize cross-database comparisons, as seen in collaborations with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and research groups at University of Tokyo and Seoul National University.
Category:Citation indexes