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Cited by 833scientometrics and bibliometrics researchWeb visibility and informetricsPsychology Research and Bibliometrics

Comparing bibliometric statistics obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus

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Archambault, Éric, Campbell, David, Gingras, Yves, Larivière, Vincent·2009·Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
DOI 10.1002/asi.21062
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Abstract

For more than 40 years, the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now part of Thomson Reuters) produced the only available bibliographic databases from which bibliometricians could compile large‐scale bibliometric indicators. ISI's citation indexes, now regrouped under the Web of Science (WoS), were the major sources of bibliometric data until 2004, when Scopus was launched by the publisher Reed Elsevier. For those who perform bibliometric analyses and comparisons of countries or institutions, the existence of these two major databases raises the important question of the comparability and stability of statistics obtained from different data sources. This paper uses macrolevel bibliometric indicators to compare results obtained from the WoS and Scopus. It shows that the correlations between the measures obtained with both databases for the number of papers and the number of citations received by countries, as well as for their ranks, are extremely high (R 2 ≈ .99). There is also a very high correlation when countries' papers are broken down by field. The paper thus provides evidence that indicators of scientific production and citations at the country level are stable and largely independent of the database.

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  • Comparisons of WoS and Scopus have become a major discussion theme in scientometrics because DBs can differ in many aspects determining their suitability as reliable data sources.

    “the comparisons of these data sources have become one of the major discussion themes in scientometrics, as DBs can differ in many aspects, determining their suitability as an appropriate and reliable data sources for various purposes”

    From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [296]

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Jacsó, P. (2005). As we may search - Comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases, Current Science , 89(9), 1537-47.

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Authors
Archambault, É., Campbell, D., Gingras, Y., & Larivière, V.
Affiliations
  • Université du Québec à Montréal (CA)
  • Science-Metrix (Canada) (CA)
Corresponding author
  • Archambault, Éric
  • Campbell, David
  • Gingras, Yves
  • Larivière, Vincent
ORCID
Venue
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2009-04-13
Volume
60
Issue
7
Pages
1320-1326
ISSN
  • 1532-2882 (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-2890
DOI
10.1002/asi.21062
OpenAlex
W2952984634
Cited by
833
References
19
Citations by year
2026: 97 · 2025: 103 · 2024: 103 · 2023: 101 · 2022: 83 · 2021: 77 · 2020: 50 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 11
FWCI
12.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Papyrus : Institutional Repository (Université de Montréal) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
Keywords
Web of Science, Scopus, citation indexes, citation counts, bibliometric indicators

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