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The Science Citation Index database:

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) publishes the Science Citation Index (SCI), which provides access to current bibliographic information and cited references. The online version of SCI, called Web of Science, covers over 5,600 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals in a broad range of disciplines. An online listing of titles is available at http://www.isinet.com/products/citation/citsci.html.

WHAT IS A CITATION INDEX?

SCI is unique because it is a citation index. A citation index is a compilation of all the cited references from journal articles indexed in the database. In a citation index, you can look up a published paper in order to find journal articles that have cited it. ISI has produced an introduction to cited reference searching at http://www.isinet.com/training/jobaids/citrefpr/prim1.html.

Citation Impact and Impact Factors

WHAT IS CITATION IMPACT?

Citation Impact is the number of times a paper has been cited. ISI indexes articles in a core set of journals, so citations from publications like conference proceedings and books may not be represented in the citation count for a particular paper.

WHAT ARE IMPACT FACTORS?

ISI uses the cited references it collects to compile citation frequency data, or impact factors. An impact factor is the relationship between a discrete unit (such as a journal or a university) and the average of a broader group (such as similar journals covering a subject discipline). Impact relative to field is the citation impact for a journal or university in a particular field divided by citation impact for the field as a whole, worldwide. For example, if papers published at Yale in the field of electrical engineering have a relative impact of 1.83, the papers have been cited 83% more than electrical engineering papers produced at the average university.

ISI produces two tools for measuring impact factors: Journal Citation Reports, which compares and ranks journals with similar journals covering a subject discipline; and University Science Indicators, which compares and ranks universities in various ways, including by field/subject discipline. These publications are available at the Yale Science Libraries. JCR is available at Kline Science Library and USI is available on disk from either Kline Science Library or the Engineering Library.

The use of this electronic tool will not provide comprehensive coverage; this tool indexes core publications but does not provide in-depth coverage ofconferences, book series, or individual books. Other databases may be more appropriate for comprehensive coverage of a particular discipline (see Related databases below). The most recent information appears with a delay after publication of the actual articles and/or books. Please consult the list of covered journals, books, conference proceedings, etc. in order to become aware of the scope of this product. Please feel free to contact a librarian for further clarification or for identification of other information sources outside the scope of this resource.

Articles by Eugene Garfield (creator of this product).

Also consider the following indexes for related data:

• subject-specific indexes and abstracts -- for more detailed coverage and scope in any area
• Interdisciplinary indexes and abstracts -- search science journals and newspapers