Differences between Scopus and Web of Science

Anyone involved in scientific articles, dissertations, publications and research projects has heard of scientometric databases (abbreviated DB). These collections play a vital role in providing information and support to scientists in all countries, including the post-Soviet space.

There are many platforms developed, but the most accessible and useful are considered to be Scopus and Web of Science. Both are suitable for a scientist or an organization to ensure a rating, which is estimated by the number of indexed and published works (such as a scientific article, doctoral dissertation or excerpts from a dissertation posted in Scopus or Web of Science). But how do these databases differ and which one should you choose so that the publication passes the test and gets into a scientific journal? We will try to figure this out.

Where are scientometric databases used?

No scientist will be recognized in the world community if he/she does not have at least one publication in Web of Science or Scopus. In addition, without published scientific articles in Scopus, it is unlikely that one will be able to apply for grants and participate in competitions, count on career growth and sign a contract with an educational institution or organization cooperating with Scopus or WoS.

Of course, if a scientist plans to work and develop only in his own country and is not going to enter the international arena, he does not need to publish in Scopus. It is enough to graduate from a university, defend his dissertation and sign an employment contract with a local organization. But in order to apply for highly paid positions abroad, you will have to learn how to use an abstract and bibliographic database (Scopus, Web of Science and others) with built-in tools that can track the citation of publications on the Internet and in printed publications.

It is noteworthy that foreign databases such as Scopus, Google Scholar or Web of Science began to be created much earlier than domestic ones, back in the 19th century. Therefore, one can only imagine how much data is stored in them. But each publication is individual, so it is impossible to say that Scopus or Web of Science will be useful to everyone. For this, it is better to conduct a comparative analysis, which will help to make an individual choice.

Scopus: history of creation and brief information

Scopus is one of the largest international publicly accessible abstract databases, which is annually updated with more than 2 million articles. Scopus allows scientists from all over the world to access both excerpts and citations from published scientific articles, and the full text. In addition, in Scopus, a publication on any topic can be found by selecting it using appropriate filters (supports different languages). Also, the selected scientific article can be automatically compared by Scopus artificial intelligence, working according to a predetermined algorithm, with others according to a specific algorithm.

Scopus is indispensable not only for research practice, but also for defending a doctoral or candidate's dissertation, in which it is necessary to analyze the activities of one scientist: what he was interested in, what conclusions and discoveries he made, how productive and cited he was, etc. Moreover, Scopus will help if you need to compare one scientific journal with another, using several different parameters. Thus, the author will be able to decide on the publication from the Scopus list that is best suited for posting the work.

The most important indicator of any database is indexing. Scopus indexes more than 24 thousand publications from 5 thousand publishers worldwide, which is a third more than in Web of Science. And this figure grows every day, so any user can find literature in Scopus on almost any discipline. Scopus also supports abstracts, scientific articles, books, reports, monographs and conference abstracts in various languages.

By subscribing to Scopus, you will gain access to huge volumes of fresh, verified information, which is so necessary for tracking trends, tendencies and conducting joint research (including finding partners or those who think in the same way as you). Scopus is configured not only to search for information, but also to analyze the obtained data, monitor the frequency of citations and use of links, compare and other research on the topic of interest.

Scopus supports indexing both individually (when the author is the author of a scientific article) and with the organization in which the user works. It is enough to indicate the name of the enterprise or educational institution in the Scopus profile and you will be linked. Institutions can independently create their own profiles - for this, its employee must have at least one publication or other type of scientific article in Scopus, posted during the period of his official work in this organization.

Web of Science: history of database development and its characteristics

Web of Science is a scientometric database that hosts works from 12,000 global publications with a high citation index. This scientific journal is used not so much to study global trends as for deeper analysis and historical discourse on the topic under study.

The Web of Science database is considered one of the oldest digital catalogs in the world, as it has existed since the mid-20th century and covers more than 50 million scientific articles, dissertations and other works from printed publications, monographs, books, conferences and monographs. This platform will be useful for those interested in natural, social, technical sciences, art and history. But Web of Science can also help develop in other areas, as it contains works on more than 250 thousand topics, which is not inferior to Scopus.

Several characteristics distinguish Web of Science from other similar online directories:

1. Support for seven languages, including Russian (not all international platforms, including Scopus, can boast of this. As a rule, they are limited to English, German, sometimes Spanish, French and Italian).
2. All scientific journals, no matter how large or influential they are, are valued equally when it comes to indexing and assessing the reputations of scientists and journalists.
3. Web of Science supports full indexing, which guarantees user access to all works, including individual developments and research of organizations and educational institutions.
4. The resource contains works from regional databases of China, Russia, Latin America and even Korea.

Web of Science offers to get acquainted not only with publications, but also with data on authors, the number of citations found, information on the conducted research, their funding and affiliation with a certain organization. It is also possible to subscribe to a mailing list of notifications if the user wants to track when a new publication or scientific article on a certain topic appears. The mailing list will be sent automatically to the e-mail specified in the Web of Science profile.

Taking into account the above, we can make a brief conclusion that the international platform Web of Science has combined abstract databases with patents, publications and other research works. In WoS it is easy to search for bibliographic information or books by:

• to the author,
• the company he works for,
• research topic,
• the country of residence or work of the scientist,
• the name of the publisher or scientific journal,
• subject categories and other filters.

Web of Science supports citation accounting, which is necessary for calculating the Hirsch index and other indicators, without which a scientist will not be able to receive a grant or apply for his own laboratory in a large international company. The only drawback of Web of Science is that despite its multilingualism, the platform mainly takes into account publications in English, which can lead to errors in calculating the index.

All information in Web of Science is updated weekly, but if there is a need to search for literature from previous years, the database is practically unrivaled. This database differs from Scopus in its depth and breadth of coverage and support for comprehensive citation searches thanks to its partnership with Thomson Reuters.

Indexing dates in Scopus and Web of Science

Indexing is one of the most important indicators to pay attention to when searching for a scientific journal to publish your scientific article in or when selecting a database. Remember that any target scientific journal should not only correspond to the topic of your scientific article, but also be indexed in the Web of Science or Scopus databases.

In Scopus, indexing takes from 4 to 8 weeks. In Web of Science, this process takes a little faster. From 3 to 6 weeks. But there are exceptions. If you want to speed up the indexing of your article, you need to directly contact Web of Science support and ask to speed up the indexing. Scopus and WoS specialists are happy to make concessions to scientists. If you do not know how to do this correctly, then the Academy of Articles will be happy to help you speed up the indexing of scientific articles.

It is impossible to say unequivocally, Scopus or Web of Science, which is better to choose so that a publication or scientific article is noticed and recognized. The comparison is similar to how scientists choose a scientific journal to publish their work - most often, subjective opinion works. Therefore, for the purity of the research, it is better to use Scopus and Web of Science simultaneously - they complement each other and help both with the selection of sources and with the analysis of the depth of citation.