Web of Science
Publishing & metrics
A selective, multidisciplinary citation database used to identify indexed journals and track citation impact.
Web of Science is Clarivate's citation index and the older of the two major bibliographic databases. Its Core Collection includes the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index.
It is generally regarded as the more selective of the two, with SCIE and SSCI in particular treated as high-quality indexing in academic recruitment and doctoral regulations. Journal Impact Factor, calculated annually in the Journal Citation Reports, is derived from Web of Science data and remains the most recognised journal metric despite well-documented limitations.
Coverage differs from Scopus rather than being a subset of it: Web of Science reaches further back historically, while Scopus indexes more journals overall, particularly in the social sciences and non-English literature. A thorough systematic review therefore searches both, and often Google Scholar as well, to avoid missing relevant work.
Guides on this topic
Guides that use this concept
All guidesNot sure where to start?
Book a free 15-minute consult. We'll map your next three steps — no obligation.