CS 2250
Technical Information Resources

Bonus Exercise Using Citation Index Tools Spring 1998
GT College of Computing

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What does ISI's The Web of Science hold for you?

Citation indexes trace the formal links which author-researchers establish between one another's works by "citing" (referencing) them in bibliographies. The Web of Science permits you to examine references "back in time" (from the point of view of a particular paper) by copying each paper's bibliography into its database: the list of works which "came before" a certain paper. But Web of Science also permits you to search "forward in time" by determining which papers have cited a given work subsequent to its publication.

Web of Science employs "quasi-smart" algorithms to simplify the searcher's task. ISI does not perform true "subject indexing," when a human indexer actually chooses controlled-vocabulary terms to categorize particular articles. Instead, ISI's computers mechanically harvest common words from the titles, abstracts, and bibliographies of listed papers; the print version of the index calls these categories permuterm subject listings. Using computer-generated keywords and relevance-ranking, Web of Science offers a "Related Records" function that attempts to locate articles similar to one which the searcher identifies as "on target."

General Instructions

Part One,
FORWARD IN TIME: searching for papers which make reference to (which cite) one you already know.

To set up:

1. Log into Web of Science from the Library's list of "Gateway Databases."
2. Choose "Full Search" (ISI uses purple buttons), then
3. click the checkboxes to search all three files (SCI, SSCI, and A&HCI), and
4. leave the search set for "all years."
5. Choose "Cited Ref Search" (purple button) to access search-query page.

ISI calls the search query "Step One" in a Cited Reference Search.

1. Here is a citation for which to search. Follow the examples & online hints to devise your author, publication, & year search:

   Landolt A U. UBV photoelectric sequences in the celestial equatorial selected areas 92-115. Astronomical J. 78:959-81; 989-1020, 1973.

2. Once you have entered the search terms, execute the search by clicking "Lookup."

ISI says "Step 2" in a Cited Reference Search is the the "Selection" step:

1. Examine the search results: if performed correctly, it should list "1 of 1 references" and "Landolt AU" as the "cited author."
2. To select the records, click the purple "Select All" button, or click the checkbox next to the item on the results list.
3. To execute a search in Web of Science which looks for articles which cite the selected results, click the "search" button.
4. At this point, you have actually executed the "Cited Reference Search." You have found a paper newer than the one about which you already knew, and that subsequent paper cites the one which came before. Consider your results, as below...

Part Two,
BACKWARDS IN TIME: searching for papers cited in a paper you already know.

To set up:

1. Log into Web of Science from the Library's list of "Gateway Databases."
2. Choose "Full Search" (ISI uses purple buttons), then
3. click the checkboxes to search just two of the files: SCI + SSCI
4. Leave the search set for "all years."
5. Choose "General Search" (purple button) to access search-query page.

Search a familiar author:

1. Perhaps you've just met a colleague at a conference, or finished a course with someone whose research you find intriguing. To learn more about the connections between their writings and other work in the field, you could search the colleague's name.
2. Enter this search into the "Author..." query field:
   GUZDIAL M*
   (The asterick "*" character truncates the author's first initials, since we're not sure what Mark Guzdial's middle initial might be: it's a wildcard.)

Examine the search results:

1. Scroll through the retrieved records; note that each one lists M. Guzdial as either primary or secondary author.
2. Choose the record which lists A. Badre as primary author and M. Guzdial secondary. Click on the title of the article, to display the full record.
3. From the full record, select the "cited references" link.

Cited references as connections:

1. Examine the bibliographic list for the Badre/Guzdial paper.
2. Each bibliography entry which is itself a hotlink corresponds to a paper elsewhere in the Web of Science. Find such a paper in the Badre/Guzdial bibliography.
3. To complete this exercise, answer the following questions about the paper cited by Badre/Guzdial:
   • Who is the secondary author of this paper?
   • How many references does it cite?
   • What's the first phrase under "author keywords"?
   • While viewing the main record display for the Siochi article, click the "Times Cited" link. Review the results: why would you expect to find the Badre/Guzdial article mentioned here again? Explain.

Tricky Little Details... A number of factors make this exercise difficult both to devise and to complete. Note these potential problems carefully, and email me if you get stuck. Web of Science is a realtime moving target. The database is due for updates that may alter the number of results retrieved by a given search. I may have to post fixes to the newsgroup. Limited scope of Tech access. The site-license which the GT Library has purchased accesses only the last five years of data in the ISI files. That means our "Web of Science" doesn't stretch back in time as far as possible: it limits the number of bibliography entries which are hot links because they occur elsewhere in the database as a full record. If a 1995 paper (in our database version) references a 1990 paper (in ISI's full version, but not ours), then the 1990 paper won't be a hotlink in the 1995 paper's bibliography listing. Rats. Limited number of simultaneous users. Only eight users with Georgia Tech IP addresses are permitted simultaneous access to the Web of Science. When traffic is high, you may have to try again later. Back to Part One Back to Part Two