New opportunities for indexing journals

Abstract

Thomson Reuters has launched a new product to increase coverage of Web of Science (WoS) and extend its influence over territories and themes not traditionally covered, such as Iberoamerica. For it they have created the Emerging Source Citation Index (CSEC) which includes all the journals being considered for inclusion in the core collection of the WoS and thus obtain the JCR impact factor. It is likely that this initiative is due to the growing influence and prestige that is acquiring its main competitor as it is the other major publisher Elsevier through its ranking in Scopus.

The decision is correct from the point of view of researchers as well as editorial strategy, although it is possible that such decision has been taken to better compete with Scopus, which covers more journals and more regions of the world that the selective index web of Science, rather than by conviction or desire to cover a space poorly represented. In any case, the Spanish scientific journals appear to be well positioned as we are the seventh largest country in journals included in ESCI and the Latin American region has 5 top 20 countries (Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico).

However, some doubts about the process of entry and exit of the journals in this database and what influence will have these journals on the impact factor 2015 because they are included in the core collection from which extract citations received by journals to establish the impact factor. We will be waiting.