Regional content expansion in Web of Science®: opening borders to exploration

Editor’s note: this guest entry was written by James Testa, Senior Director, Editorial Development & Publisher Relations, Thomson Reuters. It was originally published on an internal Thomson Reuters website. James Testa (pictured to the left) joined Thomson Reuters (then ISI) in 1983. From 1983 through 1996 he managed the Publisher Relations Department and was directly responsible for building and maintaining working relations with the over three thousand international scholarly publishers whose journals are indexed by Thomson Reuters.  In 1996 Mr. Testa was appointed the Director of Editorial Development. In this position he directed a staff of information professionals in the evaluation and selection of journals and other publication formats for coverage in the various Thomson Reuters products. In 2007 he was named Senior Director, Editorial Development & Publisher Relations.  In this combined role he continues to build content for Thomson Reuters products and work to increase efficiency in communication with the international STM publishing community. He is a member of the American Society of Information Science and Technology (ASIST) and has spoken frequently on behalf of Thomson Reuters in the Asia Pacific region, South America, and Europe.

Our thanks also go to Susan Besaw of Thomson Reuters for facilitating access to the essay. This guest entry ties in to one of our earlier entries on this topic (‘Thomson Reuters, China, and ‘regional’ journals: of gifts and knowledge production’), as well as a fascinating new entry (‘The Canadian Center of Science and Education and Academic Nationalism’) posted on the consistently excellent Scott Sommers’ Taiwan Blog.

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Thomson Reuters extends the power of its Journal Selection Process by focusing on the world’s best regional journals. The goal of this initiative is to enrich the collection of important and influential international journals now covered in Web of Science with a number of superbly produced journals whose content is of specific regional importance.

Since its inception nearly fifty years ago by Eugene Garfield, PhD, the primary goal of the Journal Selection Process has been to identify those journals which formed the core literature of the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities. These journals publish the bulk of scholarly research, receive the most citations from the surrounding literature, and have the highest citation impact of all journals published today. The journals selected for the Web of Science are, in essence, the scholarly publications that meet the broadest research needs of the international community of researchers. They have been selected on the basis of their high publishing standards, their editorial content, the international diversity of their contributing authors and editorial board members, and on their relative citation frequency and impact. International journals selected for the Web of Science define the very highest standards in the world of scholarly publishing.

In recent years, however, the user community of the Web of Science has expanded gradually from what was once a concentration of major universities and research facilities in the United States and Western Europe to an internationally diverse group including virtually all major universities and research centers in every region of the world. Where once the Thomson Reuters sales force was concentrated in Philadelphia and London, local staff are now committed to the service of customers at offices in Japan, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Taiwan, India, and South Korea.

As the global distribution of Web of Science expands into virtually every region on earth, the importance of regional scholarship to our emerging regional user community also grows. Our approach to regional scholarship effectively extends the scope of the Thomson Reuters Journal Selection Process beyond the collection of the great international journal literature: it now moves into the realm of the regional journal literature. Its renewed purpose is to identify, evaluate, and select those scholarly journals that target a regional rather than an international audience. Bringing the best of these regional titles into the Web of Science will illuminate regional studies that would otherwise not have been visible to the broader international community of researchers.

In the Fall of 2006, the Editorial Development Department of Thomson Reuters began this monumental task. Under the direction of Maureen Handel, Manager of Journal Selection, the team of subject editors compiled a list of over 10,000 scholarly publications representing all areas of science, social science, the arts, and humanities. Over the next twelve months the team was able to select 700 regional journals for coverage in the Web of Science.

The Web of Science Regional Journal Profile

These regional journals are typically published outside the US or UK. Their content often centers on topics of regional interest or that are presented with a regional perspective. Authors may be largely from the region rather than an internationally diverse group. Bibliographic information is in English with the exception of some arts and humanities publications that are by definition in native language (e.g. literature studies). Cited references must be in the Roman alphabet. All journals selected are publishing on time and are formally peer reviewed. Citation analysis may be applied but the real importance of the regional journal is measured by the specificity of its content rather than its citation impact.

Subject Areas and Their Characteristics

These first 700 journals selected in 2007 included 161 Social Science titles, 148 Clinical Medicine titles, 108 Agriculture/Biology/Environmental Science titles, 95 Physics/Chemistry/Earth Science titles, 89 Engineering/Computing/Technology titles, 61 Arts/Humanities titles, and 38 Life Sciences titles. The editors’ exploration of each subject area surfaced hidden treasure.

Social Sciences:
The European Union and Asia Pacific regions yielded over 140 social science titles. Subject areas such as business, economics, management, and education have been enriched with regional coverage. Several fine law journals have been selected and will provide balance in an area normally dominated by US journals. Because of the characteristically regional nature of many studies in the social sciences, this area will provide a rich source of coverage that would otherwise not be available to the broader international community.

Clinical Medicine:
Several regional journals dealing with General Medicine, Cardiology, and Orthopedics have been selected. Latin America, Asia Pacific, and European Union are all well represented here. Research in Surgery is a growing area in regional journals. Robotic and other novel surgical technology is no longer limited to the developed nations but now originates in China and India as well and has potential use internationally.

The spread of diseases such as bird flu and SARS eastward and westward from Southeast Asia is a high interest topic regionally and internationally. In some cases host countries develop defensive practices and, if enough time elapses, vaccines. Regional studies on these critical subjects will now be available in Web of Science.

Agriculture/Biology/Environmental Sciences:
Many of the selected regional titles in this area include new or endemic taxa of interest globally. Likewise regional agriculture or environmental issues are now known to result in global consequences. Many titles are devoted to niche topics such as polar/tundra environment issues, or tropical agronomy. Desertification has heightened the value of literature from central Asian countries. Iranian journals report voluminously on the use of native, desert tolerant plants and animals that may soon be in demand by desertification threatened countries.

Physics/Chemistry/Earth Sciences:
Regional journals focused on various aspects of Earth Science are now available in Web of Science. These include titles focused on geology, geography, oceanography, meteorology, climatology, paleontology, remote sensing, and geomorphology. Again, the inherently regional nature of these studies provides a unique view of the subject and brings forward studies heretofore hidden.

Engineering/Computing/Technology:
Engineering is a subject of global interest. Regional Journals in this area typically present subject matter as researched by regional authors for their local audience. Civil and Mechanical Engineering studies are well represented, providing solutions to engineering problems arising from local geological, social, environmental, climatological, or economic factors.

Arts & Humanities:
The already deep coverage of Arts & Humanities in Web of Science is now enhanced by additional regional publications focused on such subjects as History, Linguistics, Archaeology, and Religion. Journals from countries in the European Union, Latin American, Africa, and Asia Pacific regions are included.

Life Sciences:
Life Sciences subject areas lending themselves to regional studies include parasitology, micro-biology, and pharmacology. A specific example of valuable regional activity is stem cell research. The illegality of stem cell studies in an increasing number of developed countries has moved the research to various Asian countries where it is of great interest inside and outside of the region.

Conclusion

The primary mission of the Journal Selection Process is to identify, evaluate and select the top tier international and regional journals for coverage in the Web of Science. These are the journals that have the greatest potential to advance research on a given topic. In the pursuit of this goal Thomson Reuters has partnered with many publishers and societies worldwide in the development of their publications. As an important by-product of the steady application of the Journal Selection Process, Thomson Reuters is actively involved in raising the level of research communication as presented in journals. The objective standards described in the Journal Selection Process will now be focused directly on a new and expansive body of literature. Our hope, therefore, is not only to enrich the editorial content of Web of Science, but also to expand relations with the world’s primary publishers in the achievement of our mutual goal: more effective communication of scientific results to the communities we serve.

James Testa

Author’s note: This essay was compiled by James Testa, Senior Director, Editorial Development & Publisher Relations. Special thanks to Editorial Development staff members Maureen Handel, Mariana Boletta, Rodney Chonka, Lauren Gala, Anne Marie Hinds, Katherine Junkins-Baumgartner, Chang Liu, Kathleen Michael, Luisa Rojo, and, Nancy Thornton for their critical reading and comments.