A while ago Thomson Reuters heralded their new database Thomson Innovation. One of the strong points of their new platform are the visualization tools such as the citation maps. With these tools, users can quickly analyze patents cited as references by the focal-patent, as well as those that have since cited it. An article in R&D Magazine described the tool in more detail.
This evening I found out that these citation maps have been introduced in Web of Science as well. Still in beta. But it is a nice spill over from the new Thomson Innovation platform. It allows you to browse from article to article. It is indeed visually very attractive. I have to play around with it a little more before I will fully comprehend the real advantages.
Another database that has these citation maps a little longer already is Highwire, but those I have never used seriously. See what we can learn from the comparison in the near.
Just noticed that the feature was announced in the June 2008 update of the “What’s New?” items. What I noticed there as well that you finally can use your browser back buttons on Web of Science. WoW! That’s what is called innovation.
It just popped up in my RSS feed on the second of July. The official press release from Thomson Reuters is dated July 1st, announcing the new edition of the Journal Citation Reports 2007. There is no further mention of the new journals included or excluded. There is a link to the official promotional website of JCR, which still states:
- Covers more than 7,500 of the world’s most highly cited, peer-reviewed journals in approximately 200 disciplines
- The Science Edition covers over 5,900 leading international science journals from the Thomson Reuters database
- The Social Sciences Edition covers over 1,700 leading international social sciences journals from the Thomson Reuters database
It actually struck me today that the journals included in JCR are not listed at their Master Journal List.
Shall we call it progress that Thomson is confirming what I blogged about some two weeks ago?
June is always the time to look out for the newest update of the Journal Citation Reports. Yesterday I checked and they weren’t there yet. Today the JCR was updated and included the 2007 figures.
You can leave it at that. We subscribe to this databases, and it has been updated. That’s all.
For the Journal Citation Reports which is updated only once a year that simple message will not suffice in my opinion. Only Thomson Reuters Scientific doesn’t appear to share my view. JCR is an important database. On the release of the latest figures, armies of researchers want to consult the database to see whether the journal on which editorial board they are has increased its Impact Factor. Or they use it to judge where to submit their next set of articles.
When the Essential Science Indicators are updated, once every two months. The event is accompanied with a slew of information from Thomson. When the even more popular database of JCR is updated we don’t receive any information whatsoever.
We have to find out ourselves that the coverage of journals has been expanded, growing from 6166 in the 2006 JCR Science edition to 6417 in the 2007 edition. For the JCR Social Science edition the number of journals covered increased with 97 journals to a total of 1865 journals. Which journals? We are left to guess for ourselves. Some Spanish journals they have worked out.
Thomson Reuters Scientific knows, but they haven’t told us (yet). Some journals have been dropped from the list. We only have to find out ourselves which ones. The increase in journals this year is only a prelude to the increase which we might expect next year since they have included some 700 new regional journals in Web of Science.
I might be mistaken, but at first sight there must be some interesting news worthy facts in the yearly update of JCR. Worthy of informing at least your subscribing librarians, who can on their turn inform their users. We want to inform our users on these events. We are more than willing to promote your products. Thomson, you can facilitate this work a whole lot better, but you should inform us a whole lot better than this.
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