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Novelty in Clinical Medicine. 2023; 2(3): 168-169
https://doi.org/10.22034/NCM.2023.380213.1059
Letter Open Access
General comparison of scientific databases of Scopus, PubMed, and Web of
Science
Reza Hosseiniara 1*
1
Higher School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Care, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
* Corresponding Author: Reza Hosseiniara, Higher School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Care, Al-Farabi Kazakh National
University, Almaty, Kazakhstan Email: [email protected]
Received: June 07, 2023; Revised: June 30, 2023; Accepted: July 15, 2023; e-Published: August 30, 2023
Keywords: Bibliographic Databases, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science.
Dear Editor States introduced Medline as the first interactive
Today, various scientific databases are available to searchable database in the field of medicine in 1971, this
journals and researchers around the world, and here we database was later more progressed and in 1997 the
compare the content and various practical aspects of the 3 PubMed database was introduced and became one of the
main scientific databases, including Scopus, PubMed and most popular and authoritative search resources. The
Web of Sciences, which have attracted the most attention. internet has become a place for doctors and medical
The Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) of Thomson researchers. PubMed is free and provides open access to all
Scientific, which was introduced in the early 1960s, can be interested clinicians, researchers and practitioners as well
considered as the oldest scientific database. Web of Science as the general public. PubMed mainly focuses on medicine
covers the oldest publications, as its indexed and archived and biomedical sciences, while Scopus and Web of Science
records back to 1900. Web of Science is developed by covers most of scientific fields. The only database that does
Thomson Scientific, a division of Thomson Corporation, not provide citation analysis is PubMed! PubMed allows
a privately held company in USA. It is known mainly for a larger number of keywords per search, and PubMed
through the annual release of the journal's Impact Factor. search results can be displayed in a list of 5 to 500 items per
Although the impact factor is heavily criticized, it is still page, and if available, the list can be presented with an
the most widely used index available for evaluating abstract. Its ease of use, free availability, and the power it
journals. This database is active in all fields, it has high has gained over the years have made it the most widely
credibility in medicine and is of interest to clinicians and used source of information in the biomedical field, and
medical researchers. Web of Science is a database that is now archiving more than 6 million articles. One of the
not free and requires an access fee and provides almost no main advantages of PubMed over Scopus or Web of
data on open access papers. This database is searchable and Science is that it is easily updated not only with printed
displays the search results as a list of 10 to 50 items per literature, but also with literature that has been submitted
page. It is also worth mentioning that the citation analysis online in early editions by various journals prior to print
provided by Web of Science has better graphics and more publication. In contrast, Scopus and Web of Science are
details than the Scopus citation analysis.1 easily updated for printed literature, but do not include
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) in the United early online versions.2
Copyright© 2023. This open-access article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License which
permits Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) under the Attribution-
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General comparison of scientific databases of Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science
This time in Europe, in 2004, Scopus databases were Funding
launched on the Internet and focused on enhancing None.
citation analysis. The Scopus database was developed by
Elsevier, which combines the features of PubMed and Web Role of the funding source
of Science. These combined features allow for greater use, None.
both for medical literature research and academic needs
(citation analysis). Access to this database is not free and Availability of data and materials
The data used in this study are available from the
requires an access fee, although reviewers of several
corresponding author on request.
Elsevier medical journals are entitled to one month's free
use. Scopus is a database that indexes a large number of
Ethics approval and consent to participate
journals compared to the other 2 databases. Scopus
None.
includes papers published since 1966, but information on
citation analysis is only available for papers published after Consent for publication
1996. Scopus search results can be displayed as a list of 20- By submitting this document, the authors declare their
200 items per page, and documents can be saved in a list consent for the final accepted version of the manuscript to be
and/or can be exported, printed or emailed. In addition, considered for publication.
Scopus has written search tips in 10 languages. Scopus
includes a wider variety of journals than PubMed and Web References
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Acknowledgment 5. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/iran [access 10, November
None. 2021]
Competing interests Cite this article as:
Hosseiniara R. General comparison of scientific databases of
None.
Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science. Novel Clin Med. 2023;
2(3):168-169. doi: 10.22034/NCM.2023.380213.1059
Abbreviations
Institute of Scientific Information: ISI;
National Library of Medicine: NLM.
Authors’ contributions
The author read and approved the final manuscript. He
takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the
accuracy of the data analysis.
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