Scopus h-index being updated to include content from 1970 to the present

The Scopus Cited Reference Expansion, announced in March, is well on its way. Our October 23 release saw the expansion of the h-index publication window to 1970. The previous publication window was from 1996 onwards.

As a result, the Scopus Author Profile page may show an increase of the h-index count for some authors. These changes in the h-index count are also visible in the author profile in “Analyze author output” h-index and the Cited by (citations) tab. Moreover, it also expanded the publication window of the “Citation Overview” tool.

Why was this done: The h-index timeframe has been lengthened to 1970 in preparation for the Cited References Expansion project. The first batch of pre-1996 cited references will start appearing in November.

What is the impact to the h-index: Prior to this release the h-index was only calculated using post-1995 publications. Authors that have published work prior to 1996 may now see an increase in their h-index, even though no pre-1996 cited references have been indexed to date. This can be explained by post-1995 citations given to pre-1996 works. An author’s h-index is now calculated with publications as far back as 1970, and their citations from 1996 onwards. For example, an author’s 1993 publication that received citations in 1999 will now be included in the calculation and positively impact the author’s h-index.

No cited references pre-1996 have been added to Scopus.com yet. The first content will start to appear in November 2014. The Cited Reference Expansion project is scheduled to run until 2016 and will see 8M+ articles re-processed to include cited references.

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