Here is good resource on different metrics! "Comparing Google Scholar on the one hand and ISI and Scopus on the other hand provides mixed results. For the academics working in the Sciences, Google Scholar’s advantage over Scopus is larger than over ISI (except for the Computer Scientist). For the academics working in the Social Sciences and Humanities, this pattern is reversed in that Google Scholar’s advantage over ISI is larger than over Scopus.

However, in virtually all cases Google Scholar provide the highest citation count, reflecting its broader coverage in terms of sources compared to both ISI and Scopus and its longer coverage in time compared to Scopus."

http://www.harzing.com/data_metrics_comparison.htm

Two obvious advantages of Google Scholar are that it is free of charge and that it includes citations in preprints. The main advantage of ISI database is probably that it captures a lot of pre-internet citations not available via Google Scholar, and the key disadvantage of the ISI database is that it covers only the journals meeting certain formal criteria.

In my discipline (IT, biocybernetics) no one is ideal: Google Scholar captures all and more, but it is hard to assess what among it is important. ISI, Scopus or even PubMed (for medicine and health science applications) are for me incomplete. I have to use all four aforementioned, but useful results are rather in the middle between Scopus and Google Scholar. It may significantly depend on discipline.

For medical journals Pubmed is the gold standard ,,followed by scopus and goggle scoller and index coopernicus. Biomed expert and scopus and goggle scoller are good for citations purposes.......

Google Scholar finds also citations made in smaller or locally only important journals.

Dear friends, I a on this thread to learn. Can someone tell me that for articles that are in the Scopus dbase, why are there no IF points? Which are the index that give IF points, and which ones do not? Please answer my question. Thanks.

Articles do not have IF points. IF is calculated for the journal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor

Index Copernicus started doing business - latest evaluations are not for free. Thus I vote for Google Scholar at a moment

Thanks for the link, Krzysztof :)

@Linas, today is all business! It is only matter of time before our favorite Google Scholar will begin to charge for its services!

As mentioned, an adequate balance of a researcher, scientist, philosopher is precisely a crossed evaluation of the services mentioned above.

Thus, f.i., in many places, before admitting a candidate for a new job (in our fields), many universities have started to ask about the i-index the person has. Such an h-index provides a ground that is evaluated together with ISI (preferably, and then also Scopus.

Let me tell you a tiny gossip: it is said that someone is considered to be a candidate for a Nobel Prize if he or she has at least 40-45 h-index points. And from then onwards…

The trouble with the "business" as Ljubomir says, it that the system (…) has become a Fordist and Taylorist series machine for producing papers, thinking about IF, etc.

Could somebody please give me a source to get the statistics of journals (e.g. turnaround, rejection rate, ...) for free? I know of Thomson ISI but it charges for the info.

Here is good resource on different metrics! "Comparing Google Scholar on the one hand and ISI and Scopus on the other hand provides mixed results. For the academics working in the Sciences, Google Scholar’s advantage over Scopus is larger than over ISI (except for the Computer Scientist). For the academics working in the Social Sciences and Humanities, this pattern is reversed in that Google Scholar’s advantage over ISI is larger than over Scopus.

However, in virtually all cases Google Scholar provide the highest citation count, reflecting its broader coverage in terms of sources compared to both ISI and Scopus and its longer coverage in time compared to Scopus."

http://www.harzing.com/data_metrics_comparison.htm

I am about to finish a paper on the subject. I focused on h-index and the Nobelists since 2000 to-date. I give the comparison of the three main indexes (WoS, Scopus and GSC) and present a short analysis. As soon as it be published I'll uploaded here on RG, as usually. There are, dear fronds, BIG differences as for Nobel prize winners and the three sources mentioned.

More information about Google Scholar

http://blog.impactstory.org/googe-scholar-profiles-fail/

4 reasons why Google Scholar isn’t as great as you think it is

What if Google Scholar Profiles actually suck?

This issue has been also commented in a previous question:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Google_Scholar_Metrics_better_than_JCR_and_Scopus_Rank_Why

the best is Thomson Reuters. Google Scholar may contain a lot of predatory journals. Scopus is also fine to see the authenticity of a journal. the best impact factor is of Thomson Reuters.

Scopus followed by ISI then google as the former is more credible. Google scholar also considers grey literature 

Thomson Reuters indexing/ impact is must for any scholar research. Google scholar and similar institutions donate indexing to all kind of journals. This journals are accepting a research paper by next day of submission. They are focusing on money and have no research......

I request please check following web, It offers Thomson Reuters ReseacherID indexed Journal with IMPACT Factor. I think it is not there. Can we trust on such.

Please share your view....

International Journal of Latest Trends in Engineering and Technology (IJLTET)

www.ijltet.org

Thomson Reuters(non zero ISI impact factor), Scopus indexed with out any article processing fee might be more credible.

Thomson Reuters is the best

Yes, I think Thomson Reuters is better...

Indexing of Thomson Reuters means all papers of a journal are indexed on Thomson Reuters website via Unique Reasercher ID ?? 

PlePlease clear my doubt. 

Because some journals are showing that they are indexed on Thomson Reuters and a

Yes, Thomson Reuters is the best.

By the way, I know an ISI/Thomson Reutars indexed journal with fast response, it is ADVANCES IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY

http://science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER&ISSN=1995-0756

It is scopus

http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=+Advances+in+Environmental+Biology+&tip=jou

Publication within a short period after acceptance, the average time between submission and final decision is 30 days and the average time between acceptance and final publication is 32 days.

See this web:

http://www.aensiweb.com/AEB

Best Wishes

Huda

Google Scholar is an unbiased estimator, and it stands by itself, it is free and Google does not need your money. Thomas Reuters is a company that needs money because until Google came along, it was charging $6000 for usage. Thomson charges  $5500 per institutional library per year. To remain relevant, they pretend to have a selection mechanism which justifies the price --.an oligopolistic behavior.  Huda and Abdul says better or best, but did not define "better"  or best.  Am glad that  Huda Abdullah has pointed out,  that ADVANCES IN ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY publishes your paper before you wake up in the morning; yet, it is in Thomson SSCI.       

Thomson Reuters is the best. Why to think better or best? We should talk, weather it is authentic or not?

Ghanshyam: Please your answer doesn't make sense to me. Simply, stating "is the best" is a laughing conclusion. What do mean by the best? I have rendered evidence in my argument.   

The Difference is in reputation no more no less, at the end they all try to value research through certain criteria. Furthermore, the comparison depends also on the field of research. 

Dear all,

Please share your view.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_should_we_publish_in_Thomson_Reuters_index_journal

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_we_allow_Google_scholar_index_and_similar_dubious_institutions_as_research_index_impact_factor

hello... i want to ask...indexing in thomson reuters ORCID & reseacher id is good or not?

I agree with everything Artur said above, but I want to add that ISI is determined by money. They charge arm and feet to get a journal into their list.

Dear Dr. Khan,

I have over 50 ISI's but that doesn't mean anything to me. Having chaired tenure committees for more than 15 years, I have seen some ISI journals and content that are laughable. Since you agree on charges of a journal, then there is no need to address that. You may be a recent Ph.D., but please, do not minimize the power of money.

Money has the power to overthrow governments, and you are wondering whether it could have an influence on indexing. This is not to say that it is the only major consideration. I believe ISI, GS, and RG are all good, but we should make use of all when making decisions. Reliance on only one metric will be unappealing!!  

Indexed journal: What does it mean?

Indexation of a journal is considered a reflection of its quality. Indexed journals are considered to be of higher scientific quality as compared to non-indexed journals...

How to compare the quality of articles published in journals indexed with different indexation services? These questions are of particular relevance for two main reasons.

First, importance of publications is being increasingly recognised by the academic institutions... Consequently many more authors would be publishing than ever before. Selection of high quality journal becomes a difficult decision for the authors as there is no clarity on the issue...

Second, recently many more indexation services have come up. These include Caspur, DOAJ, Expanded Academic ASAP, Genamics Journal Seek, Hinari, Index Copernicus, Open J Gate, Primo Central, Pro Quest, SCOLOAR, SIIC databases, Summon by Serial Solutions, Ulrich's International Periodical Directory. Are these indexations services equally relevant? Would a journal indexed with any of these databases be considered “indexed”?

These are some questions that warrant discussion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354504/

I Think indexing gives a greater reach to a publication for example a paper published in Ebsco database or Proquest or Scopus is having a greater reach to global researchers and those papers are of high quality otherwise the journals dont aCCEPT THEM.

I have a doubt "What are the benefits in publishing in Thomson Reuters ResearID Journals?"

Just like you indicate above. I might add that Thomson is one of the ways society attach value to research journal, but it is not the only way. However, we cannot say with certainty that journal article A in Thomson has greater quality & contribution than those not in it. Elephants tend sometimes to forget that lions are in the forest!

Since "best" (just like a beautiful lady) is much more individualistic, it is important to avoid naming the lions in the forest because they have a vital role in society.  

Another view; When individuals have low self-esteem, they allow themselves to get carried away by labels. In the end, they are neither happy nor satisfied. Yes, I have a bunch of ISI's but my bosses might have zero ISI, however, if that is what really determines my happiness, then I will be sadness will be my neighbor for a long time. Just a quick story: when I was a new doctor and published in a super-ISI , I was very proud of my achievement. My boss at that time stated that I  was looking for ISI but the others were having more hits. He said the institution prefers more hits because the society preferred more for hits.  I asked what he meant, and he stated that I was not normally distributed. He indicated his likeness for  ISI's and none ISI's.  He said before one gets elected that person must appeal to the population and not only to the sample.

In Indian context UGC accept 

1. Scopus

2. Web of Science

3. Indian Citation Index

Regards

Dear @Hardik, let me bring this fine resource to your attention.

Research Evaluation Metrics by Unesco.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232210E.pdf

@Chuck A Arize , Amazing story, however, i would prefer to publish in journals indexed in Thomson Reuters.

Hi

if you are interested, I just wrote a short note about this

Best

Gil

Working Paper The indexation of scientific journals and the bibliometry: e...

Can anybody suggest how to index my journal in SCOPUS. I am searching for long, but not able to reach to right destination. Step wise procedure for the same will be of help. 

Dear @Supradip, try to find some fine answers and similar or same research questions by following the link attached.

https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?query=how%20to%20index%20journal%20in%20SCOPUS&type=question

Thanks Dr. Paraj. I could do the same after writing on this platform. Actually "Title suggestion form" did confuse me. Now I am out of that. Submitted successfully. Let's see what happens. Hopefully it will be done.

My vote goes for Thomson Reuters.Best way to legalize your work.

Please share your view:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Shuld_we_trust_on_University_Grants_Commission_UGC_India_approved_journals

Should we trust this network SINDEXS (Scientific Indexing Service) ?

Does anyone have an experience with them?

https://www.sindexs.org/

Dear coleagues

The only database that allow us a good international visibility is Thomson Rueters.

Although Thomson Reuters is still the most important database, only journals indexed within SCIE (JCR = with IF) are of high quality.

Best regards

These indexing databases shouldn't mean much to an individual over time.They could initially but that doesn't say you are a good scholar or faculty member.it is much better to be normally distributed than to hide behind indexing by Thomson indexing. It is good to have but not a necessary and sufficient condition for academic progress or happiness. What matters is effort in all aspects of your work.Even visibility in RG could trump indexing. Therefore, one just has to keep trying!

It can vary depending on the area in which we are working. But we can rely on Thomson Reuters.

Thanks.

@ Abu: please can you prove that we can depend on Thomson Reuters? Is there a magic wand that they have that makes them God or is it what u just here from people. 

My Dear Chuck, you have all rights and privileges to disagree with me.

Thank you because I know you have no proof. As someone who has published in numerous #1 journals and have close to 70 Thomson's I could are argue along ur lines but that would be stupidity on my part. I do not go along with stupid world logic or mandates, As long as, one is making honest effort, that is all one can do. Thomson is simply a company and cannot determine how everyone should look at things.

Thank you because I know you have no proof. As someone who has published in numerous #1 journals and have close to 91 Thomson's I could are argue along ur lines but that would be stupidity on my part. I do not go along with stupid world logic or mandates, As long as, one is making honest effort, that is all one can do. Thomson is simply a company and cannot determine how everyone should look at things.

To me the h index should not be seen in itself but shold be compared to the average h index of all the researchers of one discipline. The same.for the IF of reviews which should be averaged for a whole set of journals in one discipline

@Gil,  What should be the purpose of such comparison?  How do obtain the grand mean? Please relate your response to economy an timeliness of procurement of such information. What is the value-added of such information. 

Yhe frequency of publication and thus the.number of citations is different from one discipline to.another. it is thus difficult to compare researchers performances of we do lot report the number of citations to the average number of citations.

We should be asked to.choose our discipline à be ranked.within it

So far, I found Google scholar better than others in covering a wide range of sources. The others are not bad, but are biased towards the high ranked journals.

I agree with you but there are still errors in GS results that prevent to compare them with results from ISI or SCOPUS. For instance if you are a scientific editor of a book  you may be attributed papers that are not from you just because you name is visible in the reference.  On the other hand some results are missing  you can compare GS scores with those obtained with HARZINGS a very useful free software that scans all results from GS and which surprisingly gives slightly higher scores.

In my opinion all the indexing services are good but the preference depends on the field and specialty.  In the medical field,  pubmed is one of the strongest index for acadamic data bases,  however google scholar that indexed almost in all fields is equally good in indexing in the medical field. 

Google scholar is as good as as well because of its wide usage by academics

My answer never appeared, here it is

Thomas Reuters is best for business and finance. Google scholar is a general database but sometimes there is a fee to view certain articles which are peer reviewed. The only real advantage to Goodle Scholar is it is widely cited and used by academics where the other journals are bias towards the high end research. Also Google Scholar has a wide range of topics

SCOPUS is one of the largest peer reviewed databases. It is considered a high quality database and it has more articles than ISI.

ISI is also a high quality peer reviewed database but not as broad and does not have as many articles as SCOPUS. Google scholar is ok but not nearly as good as SCOPUS or ISI.I hope this helps

Dr Réagan

Chuck, it seems that you are angry without any reason. 

It is difficult to compare citations across discipline but if one analyses several disciplines, it appears that Google Scholar overall has more citations since more researchers have access to it than other databases like ISI or SCOPUS.

Dr Réagan

@Abu,

I am not angry! How can I get angry about ordinary conversations? My friend, I am simply posing questions. I guess you have had a type of education where you memorize and spit it out. You do not enjoy being questioned so questing to you implies being angry. All that I have said is simply captured by these sentences "the older you get, the quieter you become. Life humbles you so deeply as you age. You realize how much of nonsense you've wasted time on" {simpleminders.com}. People should make effort in publishing at their highest level and not worry about Thomson index. Effort first because Thomson journal paper can only give you temporary joy but your effort will give you long-term happiness.This is not being angry but drawing from experiences.  

My dear Chuck, I have had no intention to make you angry. Enjoy your research work.

@Abu, have a nice weekend because over here we are concerned about hurricanes, and if we will make it when it land because it is category 5-- very brutal in consequences. 

I do agree with dear @Chuck. Long term happiness for researcher matters!

@ Lyubomir,   Thank you Sir! I have tremendous respect for you and your opinions. What is going on in the world is scarier? Hurricanes all over here and every wealth becomes lost. Most importantly, lives are lost. Nothing seems to have meaning any more. In Mexico last night ,90 lives lost from earthquakes. Not to talk about those injured for ever, I guess the center cannot hold anymore and misery has come home with agony .

WHICH? WHO? WHAT? WHERE? To get any answer mostly we Search Google.... Why?

Think of Google business and go back about 10 years when we had several 'Search Engines' subject specific databases. How many now use INSPEC? Everyone uses Google Scholar. Same way this indexing and Impact Factor (IF) business will come to end thinking of QUALITY not the brand. We live in Internet world where place of publication should not mater (i.e. US/EU/UK/PK/BD etc). I give you one business example. M&S, TESCO, Sainsbury's and many other giants gets their products and services from economical 'so called third world' countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Mexico etc. But they ensure the QUALITY and promote 'Fair Trade' policy. The other people have answered your call and I do not want to go in circles and if you are still looking for the right answer then read the articles on this issue.  Here is a good one to read. 

C Scully & H Lodge "Impact factors and their significance; overrated or misused?" British Dental Journal 198, 391 - 393 (2005). I copy-paste their main details: The journal impact factor (IF) is in widespread use for the evaluation of research and researchers, and considerable controversy surrounds it. The concept behind the IF is citations, and the number of them. The IF is a useful tool for the evaluation of journals, but it must be used carefully. Considerations include the number of review papers, letters or other types of material published in a journal, variations between disciplines, and item-by-item impact. Perhaps the most important use of the IF is in the process of academic evaluation. The extent to which the IF is appropriate for the evaluation of the quality of a specific article or journal and particularly for the evaluation of individual and collective research achievements is highly debatable.

If your article is published anywhere in the world but it can popup in results of 'Google Scholar' and your abstract contains useful analytical details and the pdf file of open access to your article is available, then you may get more citations. Researchers will recognize your work and you will receive appreciations.  The big business of Brands and Trademarks is coming to end and Thomson Reuters, Cosmos and others will meet their dead end soon when 'Google Citation' will be the only index. 

We live in the world of Media, Business and Politics. Answer yourself honestly…Is UNO doing its job accordingly? Are all the EU countries doing fair policies? Are the Human right reports, Transparency International, Panama leaks wiki leaks, Swiss banks etc... are these doing fair business? The conclusion will be very sad. Sorry if my answer sounds bit pessimistic but I will give you my honest opinion. Come to you question now. The Impact Factor (IF) has become a business in publication, originally aimed to quality (and still to some extent), however; within few years all these 'money grabbing agencies' will meet their endpoint. I call them bad name because if you publish in one of their journal it will cost you $1000+ to get open access. In theory electronic version should be FREE but their high running cost, licensing fees etc push publishers/administrations to charge public more....  In my conclusion, if anything appears on 'Google Scholar' and the whole copyrighted document is available 'as open access' and work contains quality original stuff then forget other indexing stick with Publishers who offers your FREE or low cost publications with FREE open access to Electronic version.

Wish you good luck to all Paperless and Environmental Friendly Researchers.

Hi

sorry for those who have already seen this paper, but to help comparing these different indexes, I wrote a small paper that I edited only in ResearchGate as a working paper. here it is.

Sorry again to re-send this advert, but it may answer several questions that some of you still arise.

Best

Gil

Working Paper The indexation of scientific journals and the bibliometry: e...

Dear Dr Hardik Modi,

Your question is very important: "Which indexing service is good from the following: Scopus,Thomson Reuters ISI,Google Scholar?

Indexing can be done by two general methods: quantity indexation and quality indexation.

If you are looking to the db which provide the more references and links to scientific journals, books..., it's clear that "Google Scholar" is presenting the best performance service.

If you are looking for the best selective service, you will be probably satisfied by "ISI"... Scopus is considered more regardless to the quality of the journals.

Do not forget the books!

The Book Citation Index in Web of Science™ Core Collection connects a library’s book collection to powerful new discovery tools, giving researchers the ability to quickly and easily identify and access the most relevant books. As a part of Web of Science Core Collection, Book Citation Index allows users to search seamlessly across books, journals and conference proceedings to find the information most relevant to their work within one platform...

http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/bookcitationindex/

No one is ideal. They all are not exhaustive at all. Coverage wise, web of science is a bit conservative and biased towards those well known. Scopus on the other hand adds some more journals to which web of science doesnot give coverage to. And Google scholar has wide coverage than the two.

What is indexation of scientific journals? What is it used? For your evaluation? Apart from administrative promotions, there is not much to be gained. That said, if you can feel some personal satisfaction, you can say that you are on the right way.

Yes. No one is ideal.

Google scholar has more advantage in the broad on their material to cover, though, ISI and Scopus has more upper hand on the reliability on their quality content. So, for author to find their paper in ISI or/and Scopus is good (more preferable) but for readers, google scholar is better (cz its free).

In general, apart from publishing to let our colleagues know our work, we publish papers to improve our chances to receive a good assessment from our national administrations.

That is a pity but it is a reality..

And also to increase our chances to get a project funded...

I agree with several points made by Gil Maha!

I am from Civil Engineering / Structural Engineering background

Recently my manuscript was accepted by an unpaid peer reviewed SCOPUS indexed journal

But the journal name was not found in the list of Thomson Reuters Web of Science, SCI , SCIE......

1) What does this really mean about the standard of the journal?

My perception is that any article published in journal with any of the following SCOPUS or THOMSON REUTERS , SCi, SCIE.... indexing is a standard article and need not be compared as all are well reputed international databases .

Kindly comment .....

I attended QS Maple 2017 in Dubai, as well as presented some of my learning outcomes research. While there, I discovered the tie-in between Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) the ranking agency and SCOPUS one of the better know indices. QS claims to award a higher significance to the those journal publications that are SCOPUS affiliated. I just wanted to put this out there as it sounds like pay to play to me.

Scopus vs. Web of Science

Scopus and WoS, though complementary, are very different tools in terms of their coverage/scope and methods. If researchers or librarians were asked to select one, which do they prefer? To answer this, the two databases should be compared head to head for qualitative and quantitative aspects. Both tools make use of bibliometrics but each has unique features, coverage and practices to arrive at citation counts and impact. Scopus ultimately has more content (~18-22,000 journals) but has an obvious bias in its coverage of European journals Elsevier titles. WoS covers about ~12,000 journals (open access titles and conference abstracts) but reveals its own American bias. Academic libraries provide access to either Scopus or WoS, and sometimes both but this is rare.

In further detail, WoS is a multidisciplinary database that contains the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Scopus provides access to scientific, technical, medical and social science literature. While several databases such as EBSCO offer a kind of internal cited reference searching their coverage is not as comprehensive as the WoS. In fact, it can be said with some certainty that no single tool is able to track all citations and the research citing them. The databases that offer cited reference searching often focus on academic journals that they index and neglect papers in the deep web. As a result, some important seminal articles and monographs are always missed.

Dr. Peter Jacso criticizes the claims of those who use Scopus, WoS and Google scholar pointing out that " ...knowing the bibliometric features of databases, their own h-index and related metrics versus those of the alternative tools can be very useful for computing a variety of research performance indicators. However, we need to learn much more about our tools in our rush to metricise everything before we can rest assured that our gauges gauge correctly or at least with transparent limitations...". In light of the ubiquity of new author impact metrics, his statements have a resounding ring of truth to them. In other words: librarians beware!...

http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Scopus_vs._Web_of_Science

There will always be metrics, but common sense will tell us who is at least doing good work. Often, the aim is not to find noble laureates but to identify effort and continuous improvement of a scholar given available resources . Here, reasonability and common sense are necessary.

So, I wanted to add to my earlier answer. If you work in the academic sector in UAE, particularly the public sector universities, you’ll want to seek out SCOPUS indexed journals. Not because it’s the best, although SCOPUS has a good reputation, but because SCOPUS is the publishing outlet that counts for promotion to the next higher rank, for contract renewal, and for institutional ranking. This is a high level governmental mandate, thus value of SCOPUS in UAE should not be taken lightly. This is simply a case of “it is what it is.”

Most journals are not easily indexed by Thomason, but its more relaxed to be indexed by scopus.

Thomson Reuters implements many scientific conditions for the journals to be indexed. Many journals have found this way is more complicated so that they go automatically with scopus.

To make sure that this journal is scientifically good, you have to find :

1- hi index of Sjr, the high hi index, the great reputation the journal will have.

2- impact factor also another aspect will show you how important this journal via the number of citations.

3- more importantly, some journals are inconsistently indexed by thomson or scopus over time. You have to make sure that these journals are not expelled

Of course, both ISI (currently known as web of science-SSCI, ESCI etc.) and SCOPUS are well regarded. So, rather than doing comparison, I think we should target to those journals which are both ISI and SCOPUS indexed.

Good is always better than the perfect. As far as I am concerned, RG and GS provide broader & timely coverage. ISI and SCOPUS may not mean much to institutional administrators. I guess I will go with what Misgina Abrha noted above.

This is really interesting issue raised by Hardik Modi. It's not only what do you know its also whom do you know, matters the most today in an academia. The journals listed and editors in charge of these types have made it dollars and cents churning machine. Now the academics are forced upon to come to the terms on market dynamics imposed by QS. ISI/WoS including SCOPUS has made a deal with QS to use only these databases to do ranking of institutions of higher learning. Thus ministries of higher education are approached in these countries which uses simple stick to force upon their academics to publish in ISI/WoS/ SCOPUS failing which your ranking drops and ministers will slash your annual budget allocations. Henceforth I partially agree that this is not necessarily the best databases compared to Emerald, Google Scholars including ResearchGate.

Citations index of many other non-index journals are of not these types better elsewhere also. I do agree with Alfred Howard Miller where by I attended QS Aple 2014 in Seoul, as well as participated in some of these learning outcomes shared by many Malaysian research universities by colleagues that we have to spend huge amount for inching up ladders of QS ranking to please the ministry of higher education which have tied up grants with every year better ranking than previous years. I therefore also discovered the tie-in between QS, the ranking agency business model with Scopus,Thomson Reuters ISI but not Google Scholar or other databases since QS chooses to award a higher significance to the these journal publications that are ISI/WoS/SCOPUS affiliated behind the scene. I do also agree to put this out there as it sounds like pay to play game or you are out of the game.

Finally, I am at the age close to retirement but do remember those early days you publish in a journal the publisher used pay to author as token of appreciation for knowledge sharing followed by the era when you write articles you will get published and no money incentive eventually we are asked now days asked to pay if you want to publish otherwise you perish...

I agree wit you Khaliq Ahmad a huge amount of money are made in that business. :-( and forced us to published in Journals, especially young researcher from academy

Hi, I should say that more journal are indexed by Scopus than WoS (T Reuters). Google scholar has even more widely indexed by a lot of journals. So the most valuable is to be indexed by WoS. In citation counts, you can also see that WoS usually shows stricter count than the other two. This gives user a better trust on WoS system and increases its credibility.

When you live in a world where you have to feel good only because your citation appeared in WOS, then you are empty in the first place. I believe in making the needed effort to the best of my ability. It should never be to satisfy an exogenous organizatio. As long as , one remembers their motivation for the effort, in the long term you will be successful. So just ignore those who are carried away by citation and just depend on your interval self, these things become unimportant in one's life. The true joy is ability to make the effort.