Toluca, México– June 1, 2006 — According to t he Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (Autonomous University of the State of Mexico), the University’s aim is to offer undergraduate and postgraduate programs to form competent and professional students and researchers, who can apply and frame scientific and technological knowledge. Furthermore, the university wants their students to be capable of increasing and promulgating culture with a humanistic view—a view strengthened with a civic, ethic, and aesthetic education.
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México has taken a significant step forward in realizing this aim with the purchase of the Web of Science® (content back to 2001) and Journal Citation Reports ® components of the ISI Web of KnowledgeSM platform. ISI Web of Knowledge facilitates discovery by offering seamless navigation to the highest-quality, multidisciplinary journal literature, patent data, Web content, evaluation tools, and bibliographic management products.
About The University
Located in the city of Toluca, in Mexico State (nearly an hour outside of Mexico City) the main objectives of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEM) are “to preserve the principles of the public university and create the conditions of study, work, participation, and free expression for its students, faculty, and staff. The university seeks to foster an environment where students can fortify their identity and contribute to an institution of excellence. The university will provide the integral education necessary to promote sustainable development, and to “create mechanisms of participation within different social sectors in order to achieve the institutional mission of accountability to the society for which they serve.
The UAEM Investment
Web of Science indexes approximately 8,700 of the world’s most influential scholarly journals, offering complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts, and cited references . With a wealth of multidisciplinary content back to 1900 and the Thomson Scientific-pioneered, cited reference searching, Web of Science is the leading scientific information resource of choice for information professionals and researchers worldwide. Journal Citation Reports and its unique “Impact Factor” have set the standard in providing a systematic, objective way to evaluate, categorize, and compare the world's leading scholarly journals and to gauge their influence on the global research community.
In celebration of their research community gaining access to ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific staff joined officials, faculty, staff and students from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEM)for a day-long celebration on June 1 st at the lovely Hotel Quinta del Rey. Over 200 individuals comprised of university officials, researchers, and post-graduate and library staff was in attendance.
The Event: Enhancing Scientific and Scholarly Research through the ISI Web of Knowledge Platform
The event began with a luscious continental breakfast. After breakfast, Lic. Jesús Rogel Benítez , Director de Relaciones Públicos y Eventos Especiales (Director of Public Relations and Special Events) of UAEM welcomed Thomson Scientific staff, and presented the other UAEM authorities. Among the dignitaries scheduled to speak was Dr. en A.P. José Martínez Vilchis , the Rector ( Dean ) of the University. Unfortunately Dr. Vilchis was unable to speak due to his attendance at an important nation-wide meeting of university deans scheduled with presidential candidates in Mexico ’s upcoming presidential elections. In his absence, Dr. Carlos Arriaga Jordán , Secretario de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados (Head of Research and Advanced Studies), delivered the introductory speech and served as a moderator throughout the entire event. Dr. Arriaga is a key figure within the University’s research community.
Dr. Arriaga provided a brief history of UAEM, and discussed the university’s mission. Dr. Arriaga remarked how the acquisition of
Web of Science via the
ISI Web of Knowledge platform will have a positive effect on the quality of research conducted at the university as it transitions from an academic to a research-based institution in Mexico . He remarked how Thomson is a world leader in scientific information publishing, and reiterated the university’s mission to be ranked among the top research institutions in Latin America and around the globe.
Mtro. Carlos Martinez , director of Latin America for Thomson Scientific followed Dr. Arriaga ’s introduction by greeting the UAEM students, faculty, staff, and dignitaries; and thanking them for their support. After the salutation, Mtro. Martinez launched into a presentation entitled ‘Thomson Scientific: Linking Scientific and Scholarly Research in the 21 st Century.’ In it, Martinez provided an overview of The Thomson Corporation tradition of excellence and long-standing reputation as a leading global provider of integrated information-based solutions to business and professional customers. Mtro. Martinez explained that Thomson Scientific is a business of The Thomson Corporation and is a leading research information provider, focusing on multidisciplinary, scholarly journal and patent literature. “It produces some of the most heavily used, high-quality and technologically-advanced information tools to over 8 million researchers, students, and information professionals in 72 countries,” he explained.
The presentation continued with an explanation of the Thomson Scientific mission and the vision of Dr. Eugene Garfield —a pioneer in the field of information science and scientific communication. Dr. Garfield ’s 1955 article in Science introduced citation indexes as a new type of classification tool. In addition, Mtro. Martinez provided an example of how using Web of Science, a user can take a seminal work, trace its origins and determine its impact on subsequent research.
Mtro. Martinez completed his presentation by offering a glimpse into the Thomson Scientific product offerings, and explaining that there are more than 240 site-wide customers in Latin America and more than 3,000 institutions that subscribe to Web of Science worldwide. He also re-affirmed the Thomson Scientific commitment to research coming out of Latin America .
Next, Lic. Paul Torpey , manager of Global Sales Support at Thomson Scientific, delivered a presentation on the Thomson Scientific editorial process. He began by explaining the Editorial Development team’s purpose and composition that includes professional librarians and information specialists, with graduate degrees in science or the humanities.
He then provided an in-depth review the strenuous Thomson Scientific journal selection process, explaining that Web of Science aims to be comprehensive, but not all inclusive. Thomson Scientific evaluated approximately 2,000 journals annually, but only 10% are accepted. This acceptance rate is supported by the fact that only “a small number of journals publish the bulk of significant scientific results. Three Thousand journals produce 80% of published articles and 95% of cited articles. Therefore we employee a selection process to identify only the highest quality journals based on such criteria as publishing standards, editorial content, international diversity, and citation analysis,” concluded Lic. Torpey.
Lic. Torpey ’s next presentation was entitled ‘ISI Web of Knowledge: A Premiere Platform for Scientific and Scholarly Research.’ He began by discussing scientific trends in Mexico, revealing that between 1981 and 2005 the total output of published scholarly papers rose remarkably from just over 5,000 to a nearly 30,000. The rise in the total number of citations to these papers is equally impressive, with just under 10,000 total citations in 1991 to approximately 80,000.
For the receptive audience Torpey then revealed the top fields for Mexico based on total citations to papers published. Clinical Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Plant & Animal Science, and Space Science represented the top five. Biology & Biochemistry, Microbiology, Neuroscience & Behavior, Environment/Ecology, and Molecular Biology & Genetics rounded out the top ten.
Next, Torpey provided an overview of the rich and diverse ISI Web of Knowledge content. “Anchored by the Thomson Scientific core journal and patent literature and bibliographic management tools, and complemented by carefully selected partner content, ISI Web of Knowledge provides “deep, diverse coverage of published research and technology,” he explained.
He concluded by giving in-depth examples of each of the components within the ISI Web of Knowledge platform, including hosted content from partners such as CAB Abstracts, FSTA, INSPEC, and MEDLINE. He highlighted the unique provided examples of Web of Science searches and it unique feature—Cited Reference Searching—that allows users to navigate forward, backward, and through the multidisciplinary literature to uncover all the information relevant to their work. He detailed the CrossSearch technology, which also for integrated searching across all the ISI Web of Knowledge components. He also explained Related Records—the tool that instantly identifies additional relevant papers based on shared cited references.
Lic. Torpey concluded by giving the attendees a ‘sneak peak’ at the new Web Citation Index TM—the multidisciplinary citation index of scholarly content from institutional and subject-based repositories. “Web Citation Index transcends the capabilities of traditional Web search engines, providing users with a robust citation-based discovery vehicle for preprints, technical reports, dissertations, proceedings, and other gray literature,” said Torpey.
Following a coffee break, Lic. Guadalupe Jimenez A., regional manager of Latin America at Thomson Scientific Torpey provided product overviews of key components of ISI Web of Knowledge: Web of Science, Current Contents Connect ®, and Journal Citation Reports ® .
First, Lic. Jimenez explained that Web of Science enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from nearly 8,700 of the world’s most influential research journals. She detailed the Web of Science powerful search capabilities, which enable users to instantly find the most relevant information to their research, and the new Analyze Toolthatallows users to analyze and refine results by author, publication year, journal subject category, institution, and language or source title. She also explained cited reference searching.
Next, Lic. Jimenez focused on Current Contents Connect—the multidisciplinary current awareness resource that provides access to complete table of contents, and bibliographic information from nearly 8,000 leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books and proceedings published worldwide. Specifically, she detailed the Current Contents eSearch and eFirst technology. Current Contents eSearch applies advanced search criteria to mine the content of pre-evaluated and selected Web sites. “Current Contents eSearch extracts the relevant documents within each site to deliver essential information about preprints, funding and grants, and other research activities (proceedings, dissertations, meeting abstracts, and reviews of scholarly Web sites),” she explained.
Lic. Jimenez went on to explain that eFirst significantly enhances the value of CC Connect by providing access to the bibliographic information from peer reviewed journal articles in electronic form before the complete journal issue is published. “eFirst offers the author and user communities the advantage of a shortened publishing cycle, and benefits publishers by helping them to differentiate between their electronic and print products,” she said.
She concluded her talk with a presentation on Journal Citation Reports on the Web (JCR Web ® ). Available in science and the social science editions and collectively covering approximately 7,000 journals within 200 disciplines, the statistical data in JCRWeb provides a systematic and objective way to determine journals with the highest impact within a given subject area.
“The latest enhancements to JCR allow for expanded analytical capabilities beyond the journal level to include the category level. Data at the category level provides performance metrics that can be used to understand the journal content, and analyses that show the citation dynamics common to a large collection of articles and journals in a subject ,” concluded Lic. Jimenez .
To conclude the presentations, Lic. Paul Torpey was back with a presentation entitled ‘Essential Science Indicators SM : An Analytical Look at the Scientific Landscape’. He began by discussing
ISI Web of Knowledge stating that the goal is to enhance the entire research process by allowing both novice and expert users to quickly locate the essential, relevant information they need, when the need it, directly from the desktop. As an integral part of
ISI Web of Knowledge, Torpey also explained that
Essential Science Indicators is an evaluation tool that helps researchers, administrators, deans, and directors measure the productivity, influence, and impact of worldwide research activity in 22 fields of science and the social sciences.
The formal presentations were followed by an informative question and answer session, facilitated by a panel consisting of both representatives from Thomson Scientific and officials from the UAEM.
Next, Carlos Martinez presented Dr. Arriaga with a plaque in recognition of its commitment to scientific and scholarly research conducted throughout Mexico and throughout the world through its investment in
Web of Science via
ISI Web of Knowledge.
The presentation of the plaque was followed by a catered lunch hosted by Thomson Scientific, held also at the Hotel Quinta del Rey.
After lunch, attendees were given a general training by Ing. Luis Serrano Macín , customer trainer at Thomson Scientific, concluding the exciting day-long event. Ing. Serrano conducted further in-depth training over the next two days following the event to researchers and others who were unable to attend the event on June 1 st.
To cap off the event, a sumptuous dinner was held at Cambalache, an Argentinean restaurant several blocks from the hotel. Thomson Scientific and UAEM staff toasted to the success of the event.
To view a video slideshow of the event click here.
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