BIOSIS Previews

Summary

Coverage includes traditional areas of biology such as:

• Botany
• Zoology
• Microbiology

Coverage also includes related fields such as:

• Biomedical
• Agriculture
• Pharmacology
• Ecology

And, interdisciplinary fields such as:

• Medicine
• Biochemistry
• Biophysics
• Bioengineering
• Biotechnology

Inclusion Policy

BIOSIS Previews monitors just over 5,000 serial sources (journal and books). We include titles that focus on basic life sciences research as well as some that cover drug development and application of life sciences research in clinical settings.

Journal articles – Citations taken from more than 5,000 international serials.
Meeting and conference reports – Search over 165,000 documents from more than 1,500 international meetings.
Books and Book Chapters – Includes detailed information on contents.
Patents – Searchable by date granted, US patent number and other details.

Geographical Coverage

UK. 13.8% Of source serials originate in the UK.
Europe. 53.24% Of source serials originate in Europe (includes UK).
World. 46.76% Of source serials originate outside Europe.

Gap Fill Policy

Thomson Reuters has a committed claiming department dedicated to two principles, keeping current and complete. The team is part of the Publisher Relations department that manages our relations with over 2,500 publishers worldwide.

Claiming is triggered by two automated processes, a timer indicating an issue expected within a certain frequency has not arrived, and a "gap", the receipt for example of issue 9 after issue 7. These claims are then routed based on journal receipt, electronic or print. Electronic journals are sent directly to a processing department with access to download the material to expedite the acquisition. Print journals are requested by email where possible, or fax where no email is available. Follow up letters are sent in cases where no acknowledgement has been received.

Claiming is not a guaranteed "successful" process, as we can only request the material but can't be sure it will be sent. At least 3 requests will be sent for an issue to be claimed (unless it is received in the interim). At times our customers will report gaps in coverage and to facilitate these instances where we could not obtain the material but customers might be able to assist, we have a standing policy that any missing issue provided will be indexed.

For pure title gaps, the title is claimed from the publisher if the gap is recent (last two-three years).

Archive Policy

Generally speaking we do not have the ability to add back to volume 1 if a newly covered journal has been publishing for more than a year or two.

Update Frequency

Weekly.

Content Classification

When BIOSIS indexes a publication, it preserves the keywords from the original document in context by placing them into the appropriate field – such as title, author, organism, source and so on – instead of simply lumping them into a single group of text. Our controlled vocabulary – an authoritative list that standardizes the descriptive terms used in our indexing – ensures that the proper indexing terms are recalled each time a key word is used. This maintains consistency in the file, preventing different indexers from associating different key terms with the same concept.

Keywords and Indexes

BIOSIS Previews utilizes a number of unique classification schemes, INCLUDING:

Topic (Article title, Keywords and Author Abstract).
Journal – Full Journal Title.
Author – All author names are processed. Author names are processed in full format: Last Names and First and Middle Names when they appear in the literature.
Author Affiliation – the addresses of all authors, editors and inventors provided with the source publication to search the Address data field within a record.
Patent Assignee Field – Patent Assignee names are indexed in full.
ISBN (International Standard Book Number): a unique identifier that identifies a work's national, geographic, or language, along with the publisher, title, edition and volume number. The format is a 10-digit number that contains 3 hyphens (-). The last digit is a check character, which may be a number or X. The position of the hyphens can vary for each ISBN (e.g., 2-7380-1000-8).
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number): a unique number that identifies the journal or source publication. The format is four numbers, a hyphen (-), three numbers and then a check character that may be a number or X (e.g., 0002-9262).
Document Types indexed – Annual Reports, Bibliography, Biography, Catalog, Checklist, Correction, Editorial, Errata, Literature Review, Meeting Abstract, Meeting Paper, Meeting Poster, Meeting Summary, Protocol, Retraction, Software Review, Standard, Taxonomic Review.
Descriptor Fields – Major Concepts; Organism Names and Classifiers; Chemicals and Biochemicals; CAS Registry Numbers®; Parts, Structures and Systems of Organisms; Diseases; MeSH Headings; Sequence Data, Methods and Equipment; Geopolitical Location; Biosystematic Code (prior to 1993); Super Taxa (1993 to present), taxa Notes (1993 to present); Concept Codes (prior to 1993) or Concept Name (prior to 1993).

Authority Files

The BIOSIS Authority file is a valuable search aid that assists in selecting appropriate controlled terms, ensuring the most comprehensive and relevant retrieval. The BIOSIS Authority File also contains related terms, broader terms and scope notes for many of the controlled terms.

Major Concepts are broad subject areas covered in the source document. Major Concepts broader terms indicates the broader subject area(s) versus narrower terms that are more focused in scope. Broader terms are found in the Major Concepts search aid. They are known to be wider in scope than the one selected. Only the terms one level wider are given. If a term has multiple broader terms, then more than one hierarchy will appear. Narrower terms are found in the Major Concepts search aid. They are generally terms that are more focused in scope. Only the terms one level narrower are given. If a term has multiple broader terms, all narrower terms may not necessarily be in the same branch of the hierarchy.

Concept codes are five-digit codes representing broad subject areas in the life sciences. A definition (concept heading) of the code follows the numeric code. Groups of related Concept Codes are arranged under broad concept headings. For example, the concept heading for Toxicology is comprised of Concept Codes 22501-22508 and can be searched with a wildcard.

Super Taxa are high-level Taxonomic terms that refer to broad categories of organisms, including microorganisms.

Biosystematic codes are five-digit codes representing Taxonomic groups above the genus level. Records that are indexed with a code followed by the word New report a new species in the family represented by the code

Citation Linking

Thomson Reuters has built an extensive linking infrastructure designed to address the issues of authentication (such as IP address, token generator or cookie technology, logon/password and trusted server systems), routing, and security access within a robust environment. The result is a single management system for the many types of links within the ISI Web of Knowledge platform and, in particular, the Web of Science:

Intra-content links (such as from a journal article record to its corresponding record in other ISI Web of Knowledge products (ISI Web of Science, CAB Abstracts, Inspec, FSTA and MEDLINE.
Links directly to Web of Science "Citing Articles", "Cited References" and "Related Records" for all shared articles between Web of Science and BIOSIS Previews records.
Publisher full-text links (whether hosted locally or by the publisher) – configured via DOI or customized journal sets.
OpenURL Links – SFX and other context-sensitive links.
OPAC links – multiple OPAC Links can be configured.
Pay-per-view links – via Publisher sites – when directed by customer.
Authenticated Links directly from Customer Research Gateways and Institutional Repositories to BIOSIS Previews Full Bibliographic Records.

Full Text Linking

Thomson Reuters actively seeks full-text linking partnerships with primary journal publishers and content hosts for all available electronic journals covered by BIOSIS Previews. Currently, Thomson Reuters links to over 7,800 unique full text titles and over 20,000 journal instances. These include a growing population of open access journals and retrospective archives.

Linking to full text is available either through customized full text links from the summary or full record page or through an institution's OpenURL system

Our Links Management system (ISI Links) is responsible for the many types of links within the ISI Web of Knowledge platform. ISI Links is comprised of a central server where all links mechanisms are integrated, avoiding the costly and inefficient process of duplicating complex authentication, access and routing systems at the level of individual product offerings.

It handles:

Intra-content links (such as from a journal article record to its "Times Cited" list, or from a journal article record to a journal table-of-contents page).
Inter-content links (such as from a journal article record to a chemical reaction drawing, or from a patent record to a cited journal article).
Publisher full-text links (whether hosted locally or by the publisher).
SFX and other context-sensitive links (it is can be configured for all systems and customized by client).
OPAC links – multiple OPAC links and links to Non-OPAC files can be configured.
Protein and gene sequence database links (NCBI links at NLM).
Pay-per-view links at Publishers.
Document Delivery Systems – our own system or customized to the preferred vendor.

Usage Statistics

Usage statistics are available for this resource and are COUNTER compliant.