Web of Science is a published research index platform that provides access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data.
While WoS doesn't provide the full text of publications, you can access those available to our institution through OpenAthens, as well as those that are already open access.
WoS will help you find the most relevant and cited-indexed publications within a scientific discipline. Stay up-to-date with what is being published in your field of research as well as its trends.
Go to WoS and enter your credentials.
In the right upper corner, you have the option to change the language of the platform, as well as the option to log in if you already have a WoS account.
Choose if you're interested in searching for documents or researchers. Select the databases.
Type your search query and specify the search fields. Focus your search by adding and combining rows with boolean operators.
If you're looking for the most recent publications, for example, add a date range.
Click on the cited references tab to find publications that have cited an article of interest. Discover the history of a topic and how it has developed and changed through the years.
Search tools allow for a more controlled set of results.
Truncation symbols, also known as wildcard characters, are used to find plural forms and variant spellings of words. They can be used at the beginning, middle, or end of a word or phrase, or in combination.
WoS recognises the following three wildcard characters:
* |
Stands for 0 to many characters. For example: |
$ |
Stands for 0 to 1 character. For example: |
? |
Stands for 1 character and can be repeated. For example: |
Search operators are also known as boolean operators. Search operators allow you to combine different terms in different search fields, so you can find exactly what you need.
AND |
Use AND to find records containing all of your search terms. For example: |
OR |
Use OR to find records containing any of your search terms. For example: |
NOT |
Use NOT to exclude records containing certain words from your search. For example: |
" " |
To search for exact phrases, enclose a phrase in quotation marks. For example: |
NEAR/n |
Use NEAR/n to find records containing all terms within a certain number of words (n) of each other. For example: |
SAME |
Use SAME in an Address search to find terms in the same line as the address. For example: |
( ) |
Parentheses specify the order of search operators. NEAR > SAME > NOT > AND > OR |
In the following example, the operator AND has precedence over the operator OR:
This search string will first return the publications that contain both the terms canid AND nutrition, and then add the results containing dog OR canine.
But if you place these synonymous terms in parentheses, this set will be combined first, over precedence.
Any set of terms placed in parentheses will be searched first.
Besides search tools, you can apply filters and use analysis tools on your set of search results:
The number of results your search has returned is in the top left corner. Use the filters on the left side to further refine your results.
Order your results by relevance (default), most recent first, number of citations, etc.
You can generate citation reports for a set of results under 10,000, and you can also create customised alerts.
To see more information about a particular publication, click on the title to open its detailed record.
Find detailed information about this publication, such as author(s) affiliation, abstract, keywords, publication data, etc.
The search terms used are highlighted in yellow, and information such as author's names, keywords, citations, etc., is hyperlinked.
There are also some other helpful features, for example, the Citation Network.
The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a quantitative indicator that evaluates, classifies, categorises, and compares indexed WoS publications.
It measures the influence, importance, and relevance of a publication through citation analysis, assessing its impact in its respective scientific area.
To view a journal's impact factor in WoS, click on the journal's name on the detailed record. A pop-up window will appear with an information table from the Journal Citations Report (JCR), including the most recent score and a five-year average.
You can also access the JCR directly (https://jcr.clarivate.com) and search a journal by name, ISSN, category, or keyword.
The impact factor of a publication is calculated by dividing the number of times its articles were cited during the previous two years by the total number of citable articles in the same publication during those two years.
Quartile rankings are based on the rank of the journal impact factor in a category divided by the number of journals in the same category:
Q1 - the top 25% of journals;
Q2 - the 25 to 50% group, above average;
Q3 - the 50 to 75% group, below average;
Q4 - the 75 to 100% group, or the lowest 25% of journals.
Keep in mind while the journal impact factor is a useful metric, there are some limitations:
Create a WoS profile in order to:
Go to Register in the top-right corner.
Fill in your institutional email (student; teacher; researcher) and choose a password.
You'll receive a confirmation email to validate your registration.