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By Liv Bjerge Laursen

When is the last time you looked at your author profile in Web of Science or Scopus? Both of them operate algorithms that generate author profiles based on data linked to articles in the databases. And the profiles are only as good as the most recent update.

So you may want to take a look at just how you are represented in the databases and, if necessary, place a request for revisions.
To get started, you need to create a personal account with the database in question. If you already have an account, you are ready to go.

Web of Science
Once you are signed in, select search by RESEARCHERS and look up you name to check if your profile has been generated algorithmically.

If this is case, you can now claim your record to be able to edit it. You can add information to your Web of Science Researcher profiles, including information about review and editorial work.
On the Web of Science Help website, you will find more information about Researcher Profiles and how to engage with your own profile.
 

Scopus
Once you are logged in, search by AUTHORS and look up your name. If you wish to make corrections to your publication list or organizational affiliation, you cannot do that yourself but need to put in a request.

You will find a lot more information about Author Profiles on the Scopus Support Center website.

Written by Mette Bechmann
 

The “Snowballing” technique in literature research is about using a key paper as a stepping stone to finding other relevant papers based on works cited in the original paper and works citing that paper. Bibliographic databases such as Web of Science and Scopus are classic go-to resources for this kind of exploration of the academic literature. 
 

In addition to these tools, you may also want to check out the discovery software ConnectedPapers. On the basis of a so-called seed paper (key paper), ConnectedPapers will build a visual representation. The papers are connected by co-citations and bibliographic coupling. This means that not only papers that are connected because they cite each other become visible, but ConnectedPapers also make visible papers that share references and citations, which could imply that they are discussing the same subject matters. 

On the basis of the seed paper, the software will present the 40 papers that are closest. The more citations, the bigger the node in the visualization pane. A darker hue denotes a more recent paper. Distance from the seed paper is an expression of degree of similarity. 

Source: https://www.connectedpapers.com

Although the visualization is the most prominent feature in ConnectedPapers, it is in fact just the icing on the cake. The button “Prior works” will lead you to the papers that are most commonly shared by the papers in the graph, i.e. to potentially seminal works in the field. “Derivative works” will display papers that contain a lot of the papers from the graph in their bibliographies. These would be papers that aim to present an overview of the field – either by providing a robust overview of the literature in the introductory part or by presenting a full literature review. 

ConnectedPapers cannot replace classic keyword searching and citation exploration, but it is a great supplement. 

Written by Dicte Madsen

If your research project involves large publication data sets, you will probably need an API to retrieve information from major publishers or bibliographic databases.

What is an API?
An API - Application Programming Interface - is a tool used to share data between applications. APIs can be used for extracting data from a database; they are often used to embed content from one application in another or to dynamically post content from one system to another.

Where do I find APIs?
Many scholarly publishers and database vendors provide APIs for the extraction of data for research purposes.  Whereas the choices of API are plentiful, this article will zoom in on the ones that relate to scholarly research specifically. Check out the list of APIs for Scholarly Resources compiled by MIT Libraries.

How much data can I access?
Although APIs are often freely available, it does not necessarily follow that you have unlimited access to all the data contained in the databases.

You can divide the Scholarly APIs into three categories:

• APIs that give access to scholarly metadata, e.g. Crossref, Datacite, ORCID, and Unpaywall.
• APIs with metadata and full text for text mining, e.g. Arxiv API, and JSTOR.
• Subscription-based APIs, e.g. Elsevier products (including Scopus, ScienceDirect, and SciVal), and Web of Science.

For more examples, check out the SMU Libraries guide.

In many cases, researchers are interested in getting access to full data sets. Some of the companies behind the subscription-based APIs are happy to share data with non-commercial research projects. However, nothing usually comes for free so please make sure to read the fine print before applying for access, as they may require that you share with them all research outputs resulting from 

the use of their data and tools as soon as possible after dissemination. Companies that provide full data sets are:

• Dimensions: “Free data access for scientometric research projects”
• Elsevier: ICSR Lab: “Access rich datasets on a powerful computational platform, free for research use”
• Microsoft Academic: “Research more, search less”
• Web of Science: “Our APIs are better because our data is better”

If you have any questions, please reach out to the library bibliometrics team at metrics.lib@cbs.dk