As part of our on-going commitment to research integrity, we recently shared that we planned to investigate how we can provide greater transparency regarding which journals are covered in the Web of Science Core Collection™. We thank our many community partners for their feedback and acknowledge the request for even more clarity around which journals are added or removed.
The freely accessible and searchable Master Journal List should be considered the authoritative source for Web of Science™ coverage. Starting with the May 2023 Master Journal List update we will provide a downloadable Excel file each month, which will clearly outline the changes which have occurred since the previous update. This file will share:
- which journals have been newly accepted,
- which journals have been removed due to an editorial or production decision and
- which journals appear for the first time or no longer appear as a result of publication changes (e.g. title changes, mergers, ceases, splits and absorptions).
Our definitions and coverage policies regarding publication changes can be found here.
This additional public resource will further increase transparency around journal coverage changes in the Web of Science.
Striking a balance
The Web of Science provides up-to-date coverage of trustworthy journals. To achieve this, our team of expert in-house editors must balance time spent evaluating newly submitted journals and re-evaluating covered journals – to ensure they continue to meet our quality criteria.
The prioritization of these two tasks varies across the course of the year. Therefore, the number of new additions and editorial de-listings will fluctuate from month to month and it will not be unusual for there to be no additions or no editorial de-listings in some months.
The May 2023 downloadable spreadsheet shows changes to the Master Journal List which have occurred since the April 2023 monthly update. We plan to include additional useful information in future updates – for example, to identify journals which are ‘on hold’ while they undergo editorial re-evaluation – along with improvements as to how we share this information.
We are committed to improving transparency around changes to Web of Science coverage and providing more useful information to our community. This action supports our important responsibility of providing our customers with trustworthy intelligence to help them transform the world for the better.
To download the latest Master Journal List and see what is currently covered in the Web of Science, as well as recent changes to Web of Science journal coverage, see here.
We welcome community feedback. If you have any comments on the recent changes or suggestions for future improvements to improve transparency around changes to Web of Science coverage, please get in touch.
