Compendex

Summary

Compendex, the electronic version of the Engineering Index, has been available since 1970. It now comprises over 10 million records, with around 600K new records added annually from 190 engineering disciplines. Compendex is updated weekly.

The Engineering Index Backfile comprises 1.7 million records from Engineering Index's inception in 1884 through 1969. It can be searched online on Engineering Village.

Content depth and completeness is determined by the in-house Engineering Information team and uses advice from the external Compendex Scope and Coverage Committee.

Inclusion Policy

The Compendex Scope and Coverage Committee (CPXSCC), established in 1992, is used to evaluate requests for new title additions in Compendex.

Every year, the CPXSCC evaluates a list of titles compiled from suggestions from various groups, such as users, publishers, or CPXSCC members.

Inclusion of the titles in Compendex is determined by applying the following guidelines:

Compendex aims to be the most complete and comprehensive resource for research and trade literature in the field of Engineering, and, therefore additional titles are selected annually for inclusion in Compendex by the external, independent CPXSCC, based on its collective professional expertise and background.

Criteria for inclusion in Compendex include, but are not limited to, the following:

• A title must have an English-language title and publish English-language abstracts for all research articles. However, full-text articles can be in any language.
• Timely publication of issues, with a minimum of one issue per year, is required.
• A title must demonstrate some form of quality control (e.g. peer review).
• Overall quality must be high. Assessment of a journal's quality may include, but is not limited to, the following: Authority: including the reputation of a commercial or society publisher, the affiliation of authors and the existence of/affiliation of an editorial board.

Compendex also covers many open access titles and electronic only titles which meet the above mentioned criteria.

Document types are present in the Compendex Backfiles and in Compendex from 1985 forward. They are:

• Journal article - An independent section of text, usually with its own title and author statement, appearing in an issue of a journal, a journal being a periodical appearing at regular intervals (generally more frequently than annually) and intending to be continued indefinitely
• Conference article - A conference paper issued as part of a proceedings whether published in a conference proceedings or in a journal
• Conference proceeding - Publication containing papers presented at a symposium or other meeting and constituting the official publication of those proceedings as a whole
• Monograph chapter - An individual section of a monograph with its own title and author statement
• Monograph review - A systematic and complete treatise on a particular subject, published either complete in one volume or in a finite number of volumes
• Report chapter - An individual section of a report with its own title and author statement
• Report review - An official or formal record of research results, research-in-progress, or other technical studies, generally published non-commercially by, and obtainable through, the agency conducting the research
• Dissertation - A lengthy or formal treatise or thesis usually written for advanced academic degrees
• Unpublished paper - Unpublished papers prepared in advance of formal publication

The Engineering Index Backfile also has a document type for Patent (before 1970).

From 1985 to present, Compendex also includes Treatment Types, which specify the slant or approach taken in a document. A record may have one or more Treatment Type. However, not all records have been assigned Treatment Types.

The following treatment types can be found in Compendex:

• Applications - Used for documents describing the actual or potential use of a material, device, concept, computer program, instrument, system, technique or other innovation. This type is also used for product reviews/technical disclosures.
• Biographical - Used for documents containing or consisting of the facts or events in a person's life.
• Economic - Used for documents focusing on an overview or analysis of a topic from an economic, cost data, or marketing perspective. Includes market studies.
• Experimental - Used for documents pertaining to, or based on, experimental method, including descriptions of experimental methods, apparatus or results.
• General Review - Used for documents providing an overall view of the subject, discussing its development, current research/status, state of the art, etc.
• Historical - Used for documents that consider a subject in its origin and/or subsequent historical developments.
• Literature Review - Used for documents containing or consisting of extensive references, bibliographies or other summaries of literature relevant to the topic of the document.
• Management Aspects - Used for documents that deal with some management aspect of a topic, and/or management methods in general. The management sciences and technology applicable to research, development, design and production are included. This treatment type is also assigned to documents concerning socio-economic impacts of technology on society.
• Numerical - Used for documents that include numeric data compilations and/or statistical analysis. The numeric information contained may be physical properties, production, consumption or socio-economic statistical data. This treatment type will be assigned to documents reporting statistics of production, exports, imports, growth, etc., for various materials, commodities, products or industries, but is not used for mathematical analysis involving numerical techniques.
• Theoretical - Used for documents whose emphasis is on theory involving mathematical, deductive or logical analysis. Mathematical analysis using numerical methods for determining a solution is also included in this category.

Geographical Coverage

• Compendex has broad global coverage and seeks to represent content sourced from publishers across a wide range of countries. Compendex source information, including publishers' location, are included in the coverage spreadsheet.

Gap Fill Policy

We periodically assess issue receipts for Compendex and try to fill gaps when/where noted.

Archive Policy

Compendex does not have a policy of covering a title from volume 1/issue 1. We begin covering a title with whatever volume is current in the year in which we decide to add a title to our coverage list.

Embargo Rules

No embargo rules apply.

Update Frequency

Weekly

Content Classification

Compendex classification codes comprise a numeric classification scheme that segments the literature in the database into broad subject areas. The codes are organized into six categories that are divided into 36 subject series. The subject series are further subdivided into 190 specific subject areas whose codes are applied to items indexed in Compendex. The classification code scheme provides an overview of the scope of coverage in Compendex.

Keywords and Indexes

Over 94% of the records in Compendex are indexed using the controlled vocabulary of the Ei Thesaurus. TOC records are not indexed.

There is no limit to the number of controlled and uncontrolled index terms that can be assigned to Compendex records. Compendex displays main headings, controlled terms, and uncontrolled terms for all non-TOC records.

Full Text Linking

Compendex provides a wide variety of linking options and flexibility. We use CrossRef (DOIs) to link to the publisher platform. In addition, library integration options are offered which enable linking to a local link resolver, an OPAC, document delivery supplier - the administrator can choose the type of linking s/he wishes to set-up for his or her institute and the underlying conditions. It is possible to implement conditional linking from Compendex to a library, based on entitlements conditions.