insideScopus :: 3 :: Dr. Evan Bieske, confessions of a user

Did you know?
There are always new features and functionality being launched on Scopus! For full details on the latest enhancements of benefit to you and your users, visit: http://info.scopus.com/summerrelease

Real Help in Real Time:
LiveChat Support Now Available
All users (except in Japan) have access to technical support 5-days-a-week, 24-hoursa- day, via online chat. With one click, users can receive expert, real-time assistance in English. Encourage both your expert researchers and younger users to try out this special service.

Want to Display Recent Scopus Articles
on Your Website? Here’s How
With Scopus HTML Feeds, users transform their favorite Scopus RSS feed into an HTML version that can be displayed on any website. The HTML feed can be customized to match the look and feel of the page where it is included. Handy for showing recently published articles, recent citations or new subject-specific articles. To try it out for yourself, go to http://info.scopus.com/htmlfeeds where you will find step-by-step instructions for activating your Scopus HTML Feeds.

Author Identifier Update:
Taking Author Searches to New Heights
Launched in May 2006, the author identifier feature in Scopus is receiving rave reviews from librarians and users alike – and the popularity of this dynamic feature continues to grow. Elsevier has amended over 1500 author profiles, many of these with feedback from the authors themselves. These updates, along with the 99% accuracy rate of the Author Identifier, help further take the guesswork out of author searching. In fact searches by author in Scopus have increased nearly six-fold from this time last year! If you come into contact with a user who thinks his or her own profile can be improved in Scopus, be sure to direct them to the Author Feedback button in the results page.

Citation Tracker:
Providing More Power for Citation Analysis
Citation Tracker allows users to easily examine the influence of any set of documents over any period of time across the broadest and most comprehensive set of journal abstracts available anywhere. Its key strength is the ease of use to evaluate individuals. Scopus has increased the maximum number of documents to determine citation trends from 550 to 1000. This increase allows 99.99% of the 20 million authors in the Scopus database to perform a complete analysis of their work within just a few clicks.

Dr. Evan Bieske is an Associate Professor and Reader in the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne in Australia. When he is not out mountain biking, rock climbing or telemark skiing (a back-to-basics form of skiing based on 19th-century techniques), he is busy with his research in the application of laser spectroscopy to the characterization of molecular ions, clusters and nanoparticles in the gas phase. Although this research might sound arcane, it has importance to wider fields of chemistry particularly in understanding ion solvation, chemical reactions occurring in interstellar space, and hydrogen gas absorption in solids.

In my daily work, I primarily use Scopus for three activities:

• To carry out research on scientific subjects
• To investigate the research activity and output of a scientist when reviewing a paper or grant application
• To scope out the reception of my own research so that I can present citation data when applying for grants or promotions

For my area of research, chemical physics, Scopus has always had very good Confessions of a user breadth of coverage in terms of the journals included. And I've seen improvements in both physical and chemical physics coverage over the past year. Some limitations still exist in terms of the backward horizon of chemical physics coverage. I know that there is a focus on uploading backfiles, particularly in physics and chemistry, and I am looking forward to Improvements in this regard.

I am a member of the Content Selection and Advisory Board, and I attended this year's meeting in Bangkok. Primarily, I review titles under consideration for possible inclusion, which entails reading several issues of the journal to gauge the scientific quality and judge the editorial practices against the quality criteria we've developed.

One of my favorite Scopus features is the Search Alert. I receive automatic email alerts when key scientists in my field publish a paper. Having these notices sent directly to my inbox relieves the burden of having to scan journal index pages or perform numerous searches, while helping keep me up to date on advances in my field.