Elsevier now offers its entire collection of books and journals on its online platform ScienceDirect, as well as access to its abstracts and citation database Scopus to innovators in 105 countries for free or little cost through the ARDI (Access to Research for Development and Innovation) program.
Elsevier’s contributions cover a vast array of scientific subject fields, with ARDI focusing on the use of mathematics, engineering, life sciences and physical sciences content by academic and research centres and government institutions, such as patent offices. Elsevier has provided access to select journals since it first participated in the program in 2009.
ISTIC-Elsevier Journal Assessment Research Center
In China, Elsevier and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC), announced in September the establishment and opening of the ISTIC-Elsevier Journal Assessment Research Center. Based in Beijing, the mission of the ISTIC-Elsevier Journal Assessment Research Centeris to enhance China’s opportunities in bibliometric research. The research center will focus on identifying research topics of interest to both Elsevier and ISTIC, such as article level bibliometric analyses for measuring journal quality and research performance of individuals and institutions.
The Center will use Elsevier’s SciVal Spotlight, a web-based tool that enables countries and institutions to evaluate their research performance, measure their strengths against peers and establish and execute research strategies based on objective information, and Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.These Elsevier tools will help extract and integrate insights about China’s research performance and advance journal assessment research and article-based analytics. In addition, Scopus data will be included in the ISTIC annual university research performance report.
In addition to the ISTIC-Elsevier Journal Assessment Research Center, Elsevier and ISTIC will also establish an Expert Content Selection and Advisory Committee of China (ECSAC-China). The ECSAC-China board members will work closely with Elsevier to evaluate and select Chinese Journals to be submitted for evaluation by the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB), the independent group that approves titles for Scopus indexing.
In other news Elsevier has revealed that it is digitizing its Legacy Collection in seven disciplines, expanding its content on ScienceDirect. With the addition of the Legacy Collection to ScienceDirect, highly relevant, scientific books from the mid-20th century to the present will be accessible online as early as December 2012.
Title-by-title lists can be found at the following site: http://www.info.sciverse.com/sciencedirect/books/legacy. The Legacy Collection marks a significant expansion of the eBook content available on ScienceDirect, which features more than 15,000 books and 2,500 journals along with more than 11 million articles, a content base that is growing at a rate of almost 0.5 million additions per year, with archives that reach as far back as 1823.
(ACCESS 83, December 2012)
