Web of Science

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Web of Science is an online academic database provided by Thomson Scientific. It provides access to five databases: Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), Index Chemicus, and Current Chemical Reactions. Its databases cover about 8,700 leading journals of science, technology, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

The three citation databases listed above contain references which have been cited by other articles. One may use such citations to undertake cited reference searching, that is, locating articles which cite an earlier publication. One may also search the three citation databases by topic, by author, by source title, and by address.

The two chemistry databases allow for the creation of structure drawings, thus enabling users to locate chemical compounds and reactions. These databases may also be searched for compound and reaction data.

Use of the Web of Science is licensed to institutions such as universities and the research departments of large corporations, generally through access to the Web of Knowledge.