Classification of Publications by Document Types in Web of Science and Scopus: Similarities, Differences and their Value in the Analysis of Publication Activity

Abstract

The article presents comparative data concerning the types of the same publications in two of the world’s leading scientific information systems – Web of Science and Scopus – and publishers. The paper shows significant differences in the typification of documents in a sample of 4338 most actively cited works with Russian authorship of various types for the period 2010-2020. The article shows that the type of publication is not an obvious criterion: the same work can be assigned a different type depending on the source of information. The revealed discrepancies of information from various sources give grounds for a certain skepticism in the correctness of the formulation of tasks in the analysis of publication activity concerningthe accounting of publications of only certain types. The results of the study suggest that if it is necessary to take into account only certain types of publications, information about the types of documents should be verified with the original information from publishers.