How to know which journal title is covered in Web of Science?

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Web of Science (WOS) is a research platform for sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities disciplines. The Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) includes six main citation indexes, such as Science Citation Index Expanded – SCIE, Social Sciences Citation Index – SSCI, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index– AHCI, etc. If you want to know more about which journal title is involved in SCIE or SSCI databases, you may utilize the “Master Journal List”. 【中文說明請見此文章：如何得知期刊是否收錄於Web of Science資料庫？】

The Master Journal List is a free resource. The list of journals is updated on an at least monthly basis. Users may browse subject categories or perform advanced searches to discover and learn more about journals indexed in WOS.

1. Procedure of searching a specific journal in Master Journal List:

If you would like to know whether a specific journal, such as “Scientific Reports” (ISSN 2045-2322), is included in SCIE or SSCI, we suggest that you can use searching function to find the journal title. Here are the steps.

Step 1. Go to “Master Journal List” website.

Step 2. Type journal title or ISSN in search box. Users may use double quotation marks around the journal title, such as “Scientific Reports” for accurate results.

Step 3.  In the searching results page, you can check “Web of Science Core Collection” to see which WOS indexes the journal is indexed in. As shown in the figure, “Scientific Reports” is currently included in the WOS database and is a SCIE journal.

2.Procedure of browsing journal subject in Master Journal List:

If you are not certain about the indexes or disciplines which cover certain journals, we suggest you to use filters to find the journal titles.

Step 1. Click “Search Journals” bottom.

Step 2. Use filters and Select the index, content, or category below.

Master Journal List provides search filters including Web of Science Coverage, Open Access, Category, Country/Region, Language, Frequency, and Journal Citation Report”. Users may use multiple options to find the journal they need.

For example, if you are looking for SCIE journals under a certain subject, chemical engineering (Please note the classification. For a certain topic, they may have similar content on different subject names like chemical engineering, there are “Chemical Engineering” and “Engineering, Chemical”), you can select SCIE in “Web of Science Coverage” and both Chemical Engineering and Engineering, Chemical in the “category”. Then the search results will be listed and the journal list can be sorted by relevance or title(A-Z).

 

In addition, users can download the Master Journal List. Each collection list download includes the journal title, ISSN/eISSN, publisher name and address. Users will need a free Master Journal List login to access the download files.

💡 Guide for Web of Science Core Collection Database

 

Originally written by YoYo Cheung, Intern from The University of Hong Kong.  原文特別感謝香港大學資訊管理系實習生張楚瑤同學翻譯及撰寫此篇英文文章！

Updated by Mei-Mei  Chang 2022/5/9