Effective August 2, 2016, the Lamar Soutter Library is cancelling the UMMS subscription to Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index (Web of Science) and Journal Citation Reports. In their place, the library has a subscription to the Scopus indexing database and SciVal research analytics tool provided by Elsevier.

As you are aware, budget restrictions have been implemented broadly at UMMS. In order for the library to meet its assigned and ongoing budget reductions, we have had to make the difficult decision of releasing the Thompson Reuters products. While the library has worked for several years to accommodate the increasing costs of Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports, it is no longer feasible to support these products when alternatives exist.

• Scopus, comparable to the Science Citation Index, is a comprehensive indexing database with over 21,000 peer-reviewed journal titles across the Life, Health, and Social Sciences. Scopus captures EMBASE records, which are critical for systematic reviews. Scopus supports document, author, and affiliation searches and enables users to easily save searches, create alerts, and evaluate results. Scopus provides useful citation tracking features, including Cited By and Related Documents for each individual record and citation overviews at the individual and group level. In addition, Scopus displays article level metrics for each indexed paper. Scopus supports data export to RefWorks and EndNote—both of which are available through the library—as well as other reference management systems. Further, Scopus integrates with the research analytics tool SciVal, which enables in-depth evaluation of research entities using over 30 citation-based metrics.
• Journal Citation Reports is home to the Journal Impact Factor, a long-standing metric commonly used in research evaluation. In recent years, alternatives have been developed which elaborate and build on this measure. SCImago Journal Rank, developed by the SCImago Research Group, is strongly correlated to the Journal Impact Factor while taking prestige of the journal into consideration. Source Normalized Impact Per Paper (SNIP), developed by the Leiden University’s Center for Science & Technology Studies, takes the raw Impact Per Paper (similar to the Journal Impact Factor) and normalizes for differences in citation practices between scientific disciplines. Both the SCImago Journal Rank and the SNIP (including IPP) are available through Scopus and are made openly available online. To learn more about these metrics, please visit our research impact information webpage with tutorials and links to rankings websites.

We believe Scopus and SciVal are viable research and education tools that will continue to provide UMMS users with comprehensive access to the latest scientific developments being published internationally. If you have any questions or concerns, we would be very happy to meet with you or your departments to discuss these changes.

With appreciation,
Elaine Martin