Abstract
Dimensions was introduced as an alternative bibliometric database to the well-established Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, however all three databases have fundamental differences in coverage and content, resultant from their owners’ indexation philosophies. In light of these differences, we explore here, using a citation network analysis and assessment of normalized citation impact of overlapping publications indexed in all three databases, whether the three databases offer structurally different perspectives of the bibliometric landscape or if they are essentially homogenous substitutes. Our citation network analysis of core and exclusive 2016–2018 publications revealed a large set of core publications indexed in all three databases that are highly self-referential. In comparison, each database selected a set of exclusive publications that appeared to hold similarly low levels of relevance to the core set and to one another, with slightly more internal communication between exclusive publications in Scopus and Dimensions than WoS. Our comparison of normalized citations for 41,848 publications indexed in all three databases found that German sectors were valuated as more impactful in Scopus and Dimensions compared to WoS, particularly for sectors with an applied research focus. We conclude that the databases do present structurally different perspectives, although Scopus and Dimensions with their additional circle of applied research vary more from the more base research-focused WoS than they do from one another.
Highlights
Just as the introduction of Scopus in 2004 challenged the Web of Science’s (WoS) position as the leading bibliometric database, the launch of Digital Science’s Dimensions may change the bibliometric landscape once more
Over 90% of the food science articles were captured in Dimensions, and the citation counts in both databases were highly correlated (0.9–1.0), leading Thelwall to conclude that Scopus and Dimensions were interchangeable on coverage and citations
WoS, Scopus, and Dimensions databases differ in particular fundamental characteristics, especially on the inclusion criteria applied to content and the resulting coverage, and the accuracy and classification of the accruing metadata
Summary
Just as the introduction of Scopus in 2004 challenged the Web of Science’s (WoS) position as the leading bibliometric database, the launch of Digital Science’s Dimensions may change the bibliometric landscape once more. Like WoS and Scopus, Dimensions has amassed a huge index of scientific documents, Dimensions has important fundamental differences to its predecessors that may offer a different bibliometric perspective. Given the potential uptake of Dimensions for bibliometric studies, it is important we understand how any diverging coverage of Dimensions, WoS, and Scopus might influence the results of bibliometric analyses. Bibliometric analyses reflect their underlying databases’ characteristics in that the databases’ coverage fundamentally defines what is included in the analysis and bibliometric evaluation further contextualises the analysed content against the database, again emphasizing its coverage. Other influencing factors such as metadata accuracy, classification of document types, and discipline assignments are treated, in a statistical sense, as nuisance parameters that have to be controlled for in order to improve the validity of the emphasized coverage analysis
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