Scientometric Indicators
Scientometric indicators are indices that measure the publication activity of authors or organizations, as well as the significance of publications depending on the scientific reputation of the journal. These indicators are used to assess the current state and development prospects of the research activities of authors and organizations, as well as to compare and rank them in various rankings.
Today, there are many international citation systems (bibliographic databases), including Web of Science, Scopus, Astrophysics, PubMed, Mathematics, Chemical Abstracts, Springer, and others. Among the existing international citation systems, Web of Science and Scopus are considered the most prestigious, with their indices being recognized worldwide. Journals indexed in these systems are officially recognized by the Committee for Control in the Sphere of Education and Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Web of Science
Web of Science is an information and analytical platform providing information on leading international publications. Its history dates back to the Science Citation Index, a scientific citation index published by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) since 1964 under the leadership of Eugene Garfield, a pioneer in the field of scientometrics.
In 2017, the independent company Clarivate Analytics continued the traditions of ISI and began developing tools designed to cover the full cycle of scientific and technical information. Web of Science remains one of the major information platforms of Clarivate Analytics and continues to develop.
Citation Indexes Included in the Web of Science Core Collection
Science Citation Index Expanded — archive from 1975;
Social Sciences Citation Index — archive from 1975;
Arts & Humanities Citation Index — archive from 1975;
Emerging Sources Citation Index — archive from 2015;
Conference Proceedings Citation Index — archive from 1990;
Book Citation Index — archive from 2005.
Russian-Language Information Portal
The Russian-language information portal provides more detailed information about Clarivate Analytics products, training videos on how to work with Web of Science platforms, information about citation indexes, and other useful resources.
Access to the Web of Science database is available to Khoja Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University and the University Library through a national subscription. Information about the capabilities of this platform is available on the library’s website.
More detailed information about the Scopus database and its use can be obtained through the relevant information resources.
Key Definitions to Know
Citation index of scientific articles is a bibliographic database of scientific publications that indexes the references listed in publications and provides quantitative indicators of these citations.
An author does not have a “citation index”; rather, the author has a citation count or citation indicator.
The citation index in each specific resource is calculated based on the data available in that resource. Therefore, the number of citations to the same author may differ across different resources.
What Is an Impact Factor?
There are two standard approaches to assessing the level of scientists. The first is the citation index, and the second is the impact factor.
The impact factor was proposed in the 1960s by structural linguist Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) in Pennsylvania, USA. It is a relative indicator of the citation of articles published in a journal.
The impact factor is calculated as follows: the number of citations received in the calculation year for articles published by the journal during the previous two years is divided by the total number of those articles.
The impact factor is an important characteristic of scientific journals. It is calculated based on the number of citations to articles published in a particular journal during a specified period and the number of articles published in that journal during the corresponding period.
The impact factor reflects the quality of works published in scientific journals in terms of their productivity and citation rate, that is, the scientific recognition of the journal.
Materials Included in the Calculation of the Impact Factor
Articles;
Review articles;
Conference proceedings;
Technical notes;
Supplements.
Materials Not Taken into Account When Determining the Impact Factor
Publisher’s notes;
Discussions;
Comments;
Working meetings;
Book reviews;
News;
Letters (except article letters).
Citation Index
The citation index (total number of citations, h-index, etc.) indicates how many times articles written by a particular author have been cited in the works of other authors.