Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

Jean Koh ::kph@ntu.edu.sg
Head, Engineering Subject Cluster

A tool that compiles and analyses the publication citations of scholarly research – that’s what the “Essential Science Indicators” (a Thompson Scientific database) has been designed for.

It offers research performance statistics and trend data with raw data drawn from Thompson Scientific-indexed journal articles, review articles, proceedings papers and research notes over a 10-year period from 22 broad fields.

How does ESI determine the scientific influence and impact of publications?

It employs the method of total citation counts and cites per paper scores to provide the following data:

• Citation Rankings – Analyzes research performance of scientists, institutions, countries, and journals.
• Most Cited Papers – Ranks top papers, countries, journals, scientists, institutions and companies by field of research.
• Baselines – Track average citation rates by fields.
• Research Front – identify core papers and hot research area and trends.
• In-cites, Special Topics & Science Watch – provides commentaries, interviews, and newsletter about the latest citation analyses and research.

How to find a scientist or the standing of an institution?

Scientists’ name may appear with or without initials depending on the way they are being cited. The tip is always to search by the author’s last name with an asterisk e.g. Rothman* retrieves Rothman with any initials, Rothman AJ, Rothman DL, Rothman JE and from the lists pick the correct one. However, for common and Chinese names, the tip is to search by last name with initials, e.g. Zhang HM to avoid scrolling through a long list of names.

If a scientist happens to have compound name, try searching both with or without hyphen but asterisk must be included to handle name variations, e.g. Garcia-molina* or Garciamolina*. The same search strategy goes for locating an institution. Use an asterisk with the institution name, e.g. Harvard* finds Harvard University and Nanyang* finds Nanyang Technological University.

How to access ESI?
ESI uses the same platform as ISI Web of Science and is accessible at http://www.ntu.edu.sg/lib/collections/db/alpha1.htm#E