Scopus

For a long time, Web of Science (WoS) was the major source for bibliometric analyses. In 2004, Scopus (opens in new tab; click ‘Full text availability’/’Kokotekstin saatavuus’ to access the database) citation index database was launched and is available to subscribers. Scopus database is to some extent more comprehensive than WoS, and it covers a wider range of journals. Scopus offers about 20% more coverage for citation analysis than WoS, but it only includes publications from 1966 onwards and its citation data are limited to publications from 1996 onwards, whereas WoS goes back to 1900. Scopus has better coverage in the field of engineering in particular, but in the social sciences and humanities its coverage is weak. In addition to scientific journals, Scopus also indexes books and conference papers.

Watch Scopus training videos e.g.
Scopus Tutorial: How to search for an author and view their profile (2:47)
Scopus Tutorial: How to assess an author’s impact (3:45)
Scopus Tutorial: How to View Article Metrics in Scopus (4:13)
Scopus Tutorial: How to View Journal Metrics for a Title in Scopus (2:43)
Scopus Tutorial: How to Create Citation Overviews in Scopus (2:48)

Practise to use Scopus:

  • Search articles of your research area in Scopus Document search (access Scopus via UEF-Primo -> click the ‘Full text availability’/’Kokotekstin saatavuus’ link). Tips for information retrieval can be found at the 1. Module: the Basics of information retrieval or Scopus Help.
  • Select articles you find interesting and create a citation overview of those articles in Scopus.
  • Open one article you consider potentially useful. How many times the article has been cited? What is its field-weighted citation impact?
  • Find information about the corresponding author by clicking the author’s name in the article. Analyze the author’s output: What’s the author’s h-index? How many citations does she/he have?
  • Search for yourself or your supervisor/professor via the Scopus Author search. Again, find the author’s h-index and number of citations.
  • In Scopus, you can find Plum X Metrics offering detailed information about the visibility (including mentions in social media) of the article. Open document details and check what kind of attention an article of your choice has received?

Decorative image. Scopus logo.

Further reading:

Finnish national guide to publication metrics: Data sources: Scopus.

(3/2023 JN)