KnowledgeLink Newsletter
July 2008
Regional journals typically approach subjects from a local perspective, or focus on particular topics of regional interest. 700 new regional journals have now been added to Web of Science®, making material that was previously only available on a limited basis through a few international journals accessible in far greater depth to the entire Web of Science community.
For more than two years, Thomson Reuters has reviewed thousands of regional journals in all areas of science, social science and arts and humanities. All journals added to Web of Science go through a rigorous selection process, and the selection criteria for a regional journal are fundamentally the same as for an international journal, except the importance of the regional journal is measured in terms of the specificity of its content rather than in its citation impact.
To meet stringent criteria for selection, regional journals must be published on time, have English-language bibliographic information (title, abstract, keywords), and cited references must be in the Roman alphabet. The complete integration of these new journals builds a bridge between significant regional studies and the global research community — increasing the visibility of topics of regional concern and enhancing the comprehensiveness and reach of ISI Web of KnowledgeSM.
The added journals cover the subject areas of Arts and Humanities, Agriculture Biology & Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Engineering, Computing & Technology, Life Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Science. The geographic distribution of these journals is:
- 199 from Asia Pacific
- 364 from the European Union
- 80 from Latin America
- 50 from the Middle East and Africa
- 7 from North America
Regional Content Expansion in Web of Science: Opening Borders to Exploration. Essay by Jim Testa, Director of Editorial Development
Web of Science journal expansion: learn more
