Meta-indexes or citation indexes created by multidisciplinary Abstracting & Indexing services such as Web of Science or Scopus have similar features as subject-specific citation indexes (summarize and categorize a document), but the coverage and search are different due to the different method for categorizing, retrieving, tracking scholarly information. The method doesn't depend on standardized subject field or control vocabulary but cited references and citations and metadata from the publisher/author.
An abstracts database of 2 billion records covering articles from peer-reviewed titles from more than 7,000 international publishers with access to abstracts in the scientific, medical, technical, and social science arena.
| Features | Scopus | Web of Science |
| Number of journals | >20,000 | >13,000 |
| Content | Biomedical sciences, natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, arts & humanities. Strongest coverage of biomedical & natural sciences and engineering. | The focus is on social sciences, arts & humanities but engineering and biomedical sciences are also covered. |
| Databases covered | 100% of Medline and Embase - plus other content | Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index |
| Time period covered | Initially covered 1996-present. Now includes substantial content prior to 1996, with some back to 1823. |
Science component: 1990- Social science component: 1975- Arts & humanities component: 1975- |
| Updating frequency | Daily | Weekly |
| Publisher | Elsevier | Clarivate |
| Citation analysis | Yes, including citation tracking, citation counts, and author h-index calculations | Yes, including citation tracking, citation counts, and author h-index calculations |
| Controlled vocabulary | No Scopus-specific controlled vocabulary. Keyword field includes indexing terms for references taken from other databases, such as PubMed and Embase | No. |
| Export feature for references | Yes | Yes |
| Alerts feature | Yes | Yes |
| Relative strengths |
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