The Emerging Sources Citation Index: Discover trending research
The Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) was added to the Web of Science (WoS) platform to deepen and expand the subject coverage of WoS’ Core Collection, including in the humanities and social sciences. The peer-reviewed publications curated for this index are selected partly for their emerging research content, international scope and regional importance. They all must pass a rigorous editorial evaluation. Many of its journals are further evaluated for inclusion in WoS’ other indexes, but initial inclusion in ESCI allows the contents to be searched in WoS prior to an exhaustive review, which takes far more time to complete.
For VCU researchers, the addition of ESCI means extended coverage in their WoS searches and an enhanced ability to identify global collaboration opportunities in trending areas. It provides early career researchers with increased exposure as well, since they are more likely to publish in less established journals. And even though ESCI journals are not given impact factors, because they are included in WoS citation counts, they may provide a boost to faculty’s h-index scores when they go up for promotion and tenure.
VCU Libraries’ recent purchase of the ESCI backfile gives VCU researchers full access to ESCI from 2005 to the present. This backfile includes more than 5,600 journals, with 71 percent of content from outside of North America and 54 percent of records new to the Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities content. With 46 percent of journals not indexed by WoS’s competitors, the full ESCI package offers VCU researchers a quality, interdisciplinary option for discovering global and specialized trends in research.
By Ibironke Lawal, Engineering and Science Collections Librarian, and Karen Gau, Health Sciences Collection Librarian
Image from Clarivate Analytics.
Categories Engineering, Health Sciences, Humanities and Sciences, Medicine, Social Work, STEM