I found out that Elsevier's Scopus currently has a mistake in its database - it doesn't include me as the second author of my most cited paper (300x cited according to Google Scholar):
"P53 Mutations Are Associated with 17p Allelic Loss in Grade II and Grade III Astrocytoma
Author not in list! von Deimling, A. Louis, D.N. Chung, R.Y. Seizinger, B.R. Wiestler, O.D."
After sending two requests to correct this mistake they will now check it again and, if found true, they promis to correct it within four weeks.
I am wondering:
- how could such a mistake happen?
- is it reasonable to beleive that this mistake is from the beginning of Scopus?
- could such a mistake, which diminishes my number of citations and my h-index significantly, i.e. about 20-30%, and probably since several years, harm a scientists career? Universities and putative employers, or VC investors, may just use Scopus (and Scopus dependent, then similarly wrong databases, like Orcid) to check a future employee and see that, perhaps, there is someone a little bit better on such (questionable) data on the citations and h-index.
- surprisingly, I was able to correct the missing publication in several other databases manually, including Orcid, but Orcid didn't change the citations and the h-index: I had to learn they now use the correct citation with me as second author, but just take the (wrong) data of much too less citations (800 instead of 1300) and a too low h-index (11 instead of 14, OK that is not much, but there is a difference).
- I know from competing biophysicists, that they usually do not cite one of my quite different papers, in my view a rather good start for a Nobel prize (Eibl and Benoit) - and that is their scientific choice not to cite the first of such a crazy experiment, but how can a neutral database accidentally mess up with an author?
- PubMed got it right, why can't Scopus not just use PubMed?
PS: meanwhile, Elsevier's Scopus tried to correct its false database; at least they added my paper - but - they didn't add it to my existing authors' list of other publications, as I had suggested so many times within the last months. As a result, Orcid may not correct the significantly undervalued H-index to a higher level. I am wondering if I were professor by now, if such a false database (and its derivatives like Orcid, although I was able to add this paper to orcid, orcid takes the wrong statistics from Scopus) exist since several years and are used by universities to select for candidates. Don't get me wrong: I generally prefer not to be co-author on everything, but here it was my findings which were reproduced by my trainee, so I contributed significantly to others carreers and should get mentioned, especially since I am not even coauthor on a later book review of those data. According to Scopus, this paper makes about 25% of my citations, according to google scholar (which I guess, most universities won't have used, about 300 citations in peer-reviewed journals were on this paper). Unfortunately, some of my other papers are mainly cited in textbooks (of neurosurgery, brain tumors) and not in peer-reviewed journals.
I hope Scopus merges this paper to my main author's list, as I requested now again.
Meanwhile, Scopus confirmed correcting the false author list (which was missing me) - BUT they "created" an additional author with my name - and did not merge it to my other papers, although many of them share many of that papers authors... I do not know how many times I will need to ask them for a correction. I bet it will be more than a dozen of times to get them doing the right correction this year. It still harms my number of total citations and the h-index, not only in Scopus, but also in Orcid.
I am happy that Scopus could make the major correction of their false database - it sometimes needs some energy to to get things done.
Unfortunately, they don't list me (yet) as "Eibl, R." as alternative author name - although one of my first papers lists me without second initial - I know there are several other authors as "Eibl, R", but people looking only for "Eibl, R.H." on PubMed never find Eibl, R. Therefore, I can not understand why Scopus doesn't make the additional (minor) correction. We'll see how many years this correction will need - the last was 25 y. after the publication.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1319831
Oncogene complementation in fetal brain transplants.
Wiestler OD1, Aguzzi A, Schneemann M, Eibl R, von Deimling A, Kleihues P.
Article Oncogene complementation in fetal brain transplants
To my surprise, Scopus was able to answer my last request within a day: they even had found that article with only "Eibl, R."; but they do not really want to change that, as long as there are not many more publications from me. It appears they can live with some inconsistencies in their database. I think I have to live with their view, since the other mistake - leaving my most cited publication without mentioning me as author - was probably really harmful, for example, even the worst plagiators on earth appeared to mention those data with the uncorrected h-index - and they became full professor. So, in my view, one should not trust even such big data files, not willing to correct inconsistencies in a timely manner or at all.
To my biggest surprise, a person from the Scopus feedback team replied again within a day to my polite summary of giving up to help them to correct their database. They apologized and admitted: "You are indeed correct, this name format should have been captured by algorithm. (but for some reason it was not captured)". I understand that this is a mistake of the algorithm, which can not be changed easily. As far as I understand, they will try to get around this issue (in my understanding by tricking the algorithm, which may include deleting shortly the publication and re-enter it) and then hope for the best in the next two weeks. If that won't work they will ask the technician. So, there seems to be a little chance, they will correct it and I won't have to publish with different name format and wait another 25 years.
I once had a rather bad experience when I pointed a hospital to several of their mistakes in their major software for doctors and nurses; there was no will at all to address and change their mistakes - perhaps, since a whole number of hospitals of the same chain used it. There was no obvious harm to the patient due to the medical and general mistakes, except some extra-work for nurses, doctors and probably even less profit for the hospitals for unnecessary extra-work. In addition, the automated doctors letters included some inconsistencies, perhaps reducing the overall-trust.
In contrast to that hospital, I honor the willingness of Scopus to address my issue, although I am just an author in a database - and not even a customer.
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