Wos

Web of Science (WOS) is a multidisciplinary citation indexing and research platform that enables literature search, citation tracking, and bibliometric analysis. It is produced by Clarivate and widely used in academia for discovery and evaluation of scholarly work.

History and scope: WOS evolved from the Science Citation Index (SCI), launched in 1964 by Eugene Garfield. It expanded to include the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in 1973 and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) in 1975. The platform consolidated these indexes and added the Conference Proceedings Citation Index, forming what is now known as the Web of Science Core Collection. The Core Collection is a curated subset of high-quality journals and proceedings, covering multiple disciplines and providing reliable citation data.

Features and metrics: The Web of Science provides search across disciplines, author and institution information, and a citation network that links citing and cited papers. It supports bibliometric analysis, including prominent metrics such as Journal Impact Factor via the Journal Citation Reports, as well as Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score. It integrates with analytics tools such as InCites, and with reference management software like EndNote. Access is typically via institutional subscription.

Criticisms and limitations: While influential, Web of Science coverage is not comprehensive and shows bias toward English-language and well-established journals. Data quality varies, and heavy reliance on metrics such as Impact Factor has been criticized for distortions in evaluation. Coverage lags and curation decisions can affect discoverability.