Content collection and indexing process

A robust editorial selection process, continuous curation, and meticulous indexing make Web of Science Core Collection™ the world’s most trusted publisher-independent global citation database. Guided by principles of objectivity, selectivity, and collection dynamics, our expert team of in-house editors evaluate and select titles for inclusion in Web of Science Core Collection. The content operations team then receives and indexes journal issues, books, and conference proceedings, carefully capturing each piece of metadata and enriching the publication and citation data throughout the process.

Visit each section to learn more about our rigorous content and indexing policies.

The onboarding process (or technical evaluation process) is the stage after a journal passes editorial evaluation and is provisionally accepted for inclusion in Web of Science Core Collection. Prior to full acceptance, the Web of Science™ Onboarding team does a technical evaluation to verify that the journal content is provided in a format that meets the technical requirements for indexing at Clarivate™.

The technical evaluation ensures that the electronic files from the publisher are compatible with our indexing practices. The checks also ascertain if the journal PDFs contain the metadata elements necessary for complete and accurate indexing. The length of time that it takes to complete the technical evaluation process depends on how soon publishers respond to our inquiries about how they will engage with us to source their content.

In the event that a publisher does not respond in a timely manner to our inquiries, the journal will fail technical evaluation and cannot be brought on board the Web of Science. The publisher may be required to re-submit the journal for editorial evaluation.

Sourcing Published Content

Publishers may provide content for indexing using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) setup or via online access to journal archives hosted on a journal’s website.

Please note that regardless of sourcing path, Clarivate must have access to unsecured PDFs, and each individual published work must contain a unique identifier: continuous pagination, article number or DOI.

Access criteria

• FTP (preferred)
  • Either Clarivate or the publisher can host the FTP site.
  • If Clarivate sets up the FTP site, a specialized account is created for each  publisher and the FTP information must not be shared with any other party
  • The publisher will need to provide unsecured full text PDFs and XML, allowing for the most accurate and fastest indexing. XML only is not supported. Even full text XML must have accompanying PDFs.
• Online
  • Clarivate must be able to access full-text PDFs as fully open access content, either via IP-based access or by entering a username and password provided by the publisher. PDFs must be unsecured/unprotected to enable access to and indexing of the content by Clarivate.

Steps in the Final Acceptance of a Journal

When editorial evaluation has a successful outcome:

• A provisional letter seeking content to test compatibility for indexing is sent to the journal’s publisher
• The technical evaluation reviews bibliography, receipting rules, and XML review.
• If the technical evaluation outcome is successful the journal is activated. A final acceptance letter is sent to the publisher.
• Or, if the technical evaluation outcome is unsuccessful, the publisher is notified. The reasons for the failure may include:
  • No access due to PDF securities
  • No access due to no password, no full text PDF
  • Absence of pagination, DOI or article identifiers
  • The information requested was not received in a timely fashion

The publisher may communicate with Clarivate Onboarding team and fix weaknesses identified. They must re-submit their files for technical evaluation within the deadline advised.

The journal will fail technical evaluation in the absence of a timely response from the publisher to the provisional letter or the notification of an unsuccessful technical evaluation. Then the journal may need to be re-submitted for editorial evaluation via the Web of Science Publisher Portal. Information about the Publisher Portal is available. If any problems are experienced with submission via the Publisher Portal, please contact Editorial Relations (editorial.relations@clarivate.com).

Once a journal is selected for coverage, after passing both the editorial evaluation and the onboarding technical evaluation processes, its content will be indexed in one of the following Web of Science Core Collection databases:

• Science Citation Index Expanded™ (SCIE)
• Social Sciences Citation Index™ (SSCI)
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index™ (AHCI)
• Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI)

If publishers or authors suspect delays in content being indexed, they may contact us via the Web of Science Data Change Request Form.

Document types are assigned at the section level, and each journal is evaluated individually by our indexing specialists for the characteristics of the items in each section.

Section level refers to the different sections within a journal e.g. letter section of journal, editorial section, etc. Most journals label their articles by sections. Our consideration in determining the document type for a section, includes a review of the following elements that are typical bibliographic characteristics of scholarly works: abstracts, descriptive article titles, named authors with author addresses, article length, cited references, data content, etc.

The complete list of document types indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection is available here.

Publishers must notify Clarivate when introducing a new section in their journal via the Web of Science Data Change Request Form. This is so that the new sections can be reviewed and added to the journal records used for indexing.

To learn more about the relationship between document types and citable items in the Journal Impact Factor™ calculations, please read our support article.

Providing Early Access (EA) content allows millions of Web of Science Core Collection users worldwide to discover relevant papers from a journal faster. Indexed EA content will immediately start accruing citations within the Web of Science network.

Clarivate requires EA content to be based on the NISO definition of the version of record (https://www.niso.org/publications/niso-rp-8-2008-jav) in order to be included in the product. It primarily requires a fixed version of the layout, text, and cited references along with a permanent identifier.

Additionally, to be indexed as EA, journal content must meet the following specific criteria:

• Include a DOI that will be permanently associated to the text
• Contain a date when the version of record was first published (Early Access publication date)
• Does not yet have a volume, issue, and page range
• Does not have a final publication date associated with the assignment of volume-issue-page metadata
• Include the cited references if present in the version of record
• Be published in a journal with a volume/issue model*

*Journals that follow a continuous article publication (CAP) or publish only in print are not eligible for Early Access indexing. Build Online publication models shall be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Once an EA article is assigned to an issue/volume the information will be automatically updated in our products.

Read more about our Early Access policy here. For more information about EA content and the Journal Citation Reports™, please view the JCR Reference Guide.

Publishers who are interested in having their journals included in EA indexing or have any queries specific to EA, please contact onboardingpublications@clarivate.com

Please use an email address for the publishing organization. Requests submitted using alternative or generic email addresses (e.g., @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com) will not be processed.

If a Web of Science user would like to suggest a correction to data on the Web of Science, please use the Web of Science Data Change Request Form. Examples of these may include:

• Missing issues or articles for a covered title
• Corrections to journal issue information
• Incorrect Early Access dates
• Requests for document type review
• Missing links to citing articles or cited references

A journal may undergo various changes such as title changes, title mergers and splits, publication frequency (e.g., monthly to quarterly), or publisher changes (e.g., acquisition by another publisher). We encourage publishers to notify us about those changes via the Web of Science Data Change Request Form. This request for a change should be sent from an email domain of the publishing organization or it will not be processed.

Please visit the Web of Science Core Collection Editorial Policies, Category Change Requests, and Appeals Process page to learn more about title changes, title mergers and splits.

Author name change policy

Clarivate recognizes a researcher’s need to update published research to reflect their preferred known identity, be it in relation to marriage, gender identity or other reasons. Please read our blog for more information on our name change policy.

Print elimination policy

To streamline our workflows, reduce the time to product, and prioritize sustainability, Clarivate is moving away from processing publications sent to us in print. New content for books and journals is only being accepted for evaluation in digital format. This policy allows our businesses to reach greater sustainability levels and significantly reduce the carbon footprint and our environmental impact.

Meeting abstracts

Individual meeting abstracts published in journals have their own records in the Web of Science under the following circumstances:

• The journal is covered in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) in Web of Science Core Collection.
• The journal is covered in BIOSIS™ and meets the BIOSIS meeting abstracts processing policy or is also covered in the Derwent Drug File.
• The journal is on a pre-approved Web of Science exception list.
  If the journal does not fall into any of the above conditions, the meeting abstract section is processed as a single ‘Meeting’* record with ‘Abstracts’ added to the title.

NOTE on DOI handling for meeting abstracts: If a single DOI is provided for either a meeting abstract section or the individual meeting abstract, it is included. However, if a single DOI is provided for a meeting abstract section and the meeting abstracts are indexed individually, it will be included with the Current Contents Meeting record and not the individual meeting abstracts since the DOIs should be unique.

Meeting: A paper that covers meeting abstracts sections published in a journal. The article title will include the meeting title (if provided) followed by the word ‘abstracts’. If meeting abstracts are processed individually the page span will be a singular page. If the journal does not meet the criteria for processing the individual meeting abstracts the page span will include the entire set of meeting abstracts.

*NOTE: The ‘Meeting’ document type created in 2023, will be applied retrospectively from 2019. The document type ‘Article’ was assigned prior to 2019.

View the full list of document types assigned and their descriptions.

Indexing items from journal supplements or special issues

Articles appearing in journal supplements and special issues are important elements of the journal’s contribution. To learn more visit the Journal Citation Reports: Items in Supplements and Special Issues page.

Group author policy

A group author (aka corporate author) is an organization or institution that is credited with authorship of an article by the source publication.

Group authors will be indexed in the group author field. When co-authors and/or group members are also provided in the source article, they will be indexed and presented on records according to this policy.

Editorial de-listing from coverage

If valid concerns are raised regarding an indexed journal, either by users or from the monitoring of journals by our in-house editors, the journal will be re-evaluated according to our selection criteria. For complete information on removal from coverage, please review our editorial policies.

Production de-listing from coverage

For all journals covered in the Web of Science Core Collection, we receive content from publishers and monitor output on an ongoing basis based on the stated publication frequency of the journal.

If we do not receive content for a journal for 24 consecutive months and our attempts to resolve this with the publisher have failed, then the production de-listing process will begin to remove the title from coverage in the Web of Science Core Collection. We make every effort to:

• Define the current publication status of the journal (e.g., ceased, paused, transferred, late).
• Re-establish a reliable source of content that is suitable for current indexing and identify appropriate contact addresses for editorial or technical matters.
• Prevent further disruption of indexing.
• End continued coverage for journals that are unable to provide content.

If we are unable to re-establish contact and obtain content for the journal, it will be removed from indexing and a notification will be sent to all previously contacted representatives.

Although Production de-listing is not based on editorial selection criteria, in order for the de-listed journal to be considered for coverage again in the Web of Science Core Collection, it will need to be re-submitted for evaluation. Journals can be submitted for editorial re-evaluation via the Web of Science Publisher Portal.

Policy for implementation of publisher change

Transfers of a journal between publishers should be notified to us.

A publisher change will be implemented once all issues under the previous publisher are indexed in the Web of Science. This is done to ensure that the transition is seamless, maintaining continuity and consistency in our products.

Example. If a journal is transferring between publishers effective Jan 2024, and the final 2023 issue is indexed in April 2024, the publisher name will be changed in the Web of Science only after this process is completed.

To know click here.

Note: “Changes to a journal publisher typically occur the following year for the JCR since the JCR data reflects the prior year before these changes were in full effect.”

Policy for implementation of title changes

A change in the Title of a journal should be notified to us.

A title change will be implemented once all issues under the previous title are indexed in the Web of Science. This is done to ensure that the transition is seamless, maintaining continuity and consistency in our products.

Example. If a journal title changes effective Jan 2024, and the final 2023 issue is indexed in April 2024, the journal title will be changed in the Web of Science only after this process is completed.

Note: “Changes to a journal title typically occur the following year for the JCR since the JCR data reflects the prior year before these changes were in full effect.”