Coverage of source types

The source types covered on Scopus are either serial publications that have an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) such as journals, book series and some conference series, or non-serial publications that have an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) such as one-off book publications or one-off conferences. To ensure that coverage, discoverability, profiles and impact measurement for research in all subject fields is accounted for, Scopus covers different source types. As part of this effort, Scopus takes a highly targeted approach of identifying content types that are significant to each discipline and expand coverage accordingly. Examples of this include two major expansion projects which focused on:

Conference material: an important content type for disciplines such as engineering, computer science and some areas of physics

Book titles, a primary source type for disciplines in the social sciences and humanities

2.1 Serial source types

Scopus indexes serial publications ( journals, trade journals, book series and conference materials) that have been assigned an ISSN. The exception is one-off conference papers, which enter Scopus through different methods than do serial publications with ISSNs (see section “Conference Material”) and one-off books (see section 2.2 “Non-serial sources”).

Journals

Journals make up the bulk of the content on Scopus and can have various physical formats (e.g., print, electronic). Titles are selected according to our content coverage policy (for more information see section 4.2). Any serial publication with an ISSN, excluding one-off proceedings, newsletters, secondary sources or patent publications, can be suggested for review and coveredon Scopus.

Trade journals

Trade journals are serial publications covering and intended to reach a specific industry, trade or type of business. These publications usually are a magazine type of periodical with articles on topical subjects, news items and advertisements that appeal to those in the field. Trade journals are seldom refereed and do not always have an editorial board. Abstracts are usually short or nonexistent and few or no references are given. Usually an ISSN is available.

Trade journals are included on Scopus because users and librarians consider selected articles to be scientifically relevant. Only articles or reviews of scientific relevance are included on Scopus. The minimum requirements for trade journal items to be captured are: (1) minimum of one page, (2) minimum of one mentioned author (for more information about the regular document type policy, see section 3.1)

Book series

A book series is a serial publication that has an overall series title, an ISSN, and in which every volume and/or issue in the series is also a book with an ISBN. Usually, but not always, each book has a book title separate from the series title and a different editor or editors. Typically, each book is a monographic publication. Book series are usually published irregularly.

 Conference material

Conference material enters Scopus in two different ways: (1) as a special issue of a regular journal, (2) as a dedicated conference proceeding.

Proceedings can be published as serial or non-serial, and may contain either the full articles of the papers presented or

only the abstracts. The source title usually includes words like proceeding(s), meeting(s), conference(s), symposium/symposia, seminar(s) or workshop(s), although some journals also include proceeding(s) in the title. Scopus covers conferences that publish full-text papers, i.e., document type conference papers (see section 3.1), whereas conferences that publish only abstracts (meeting abstracts) are not considered for coverage. Over 10% of the Scopus database is comprised of conference papers (over 8 million) of which 2.3 million are published in journals, book series and other sources. The remaining 5.7 million are published in conference proceedings.

Conference coverage on Scopus is focused primarily on those subject areas where conference papers represent a substantial portion of published research, e.g., engineering, computer science and some areas of physics.

A Conference Expansion Project completed in 2014 involved indexing over 1,000 conference titles, more than 6,000 conference events and over 400,000 conference papers, principally in engineering and computer science. The project indexed conferences from the big engineering publishers such as INSPIRES, ASEE and ASME.

In the Scopus source list (see section 4.1) there are 26,621 conferences listed in the “Conf. Proceedings” tabs, 21,244 in the “Conf. Proceedings post-1995” tab and 5,377 in the “Conf. Proceedings pre-1996” tab. These are conference proceedings from which the meeting name was captured as part of the record data, but were not published as part of a serial publication with an ISSN.

SOURCE: Scopus/Content Coverage Guide  https://www.elsevier.com/?a=69451