TechValidate Research on Scopus

Introduction

This case study of Genentech, Inc. is based on a September 2016 survey of Elsevier Scopus customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service.

Challenges

• Uses Scopus to achieve the following outcomes or business objectives:
  • Patent drafting and prosecution
  • Landscaping the competitors and getting up to speed quickly
    **Discover key opinion leaders – find the best minds in a specific field of interest using Scopus

Use Case

• Uses Elsevier Scopus weekly
• Uses the following information sources or tools in their work in addition to Scopus to support outcomes:
  • Journal or book articles
  • Patent databases

Results

The surveyed company achieved the following results with Scopus:

• Uses Scopus to support the following:
  • finding an opinion leader or expert: very significantly
  • competition tracking: very significantly
  • getting up to speed quickly: very significantly
  • evaluating research quality: very significantly
• Values the following aspects of Scopus:
  • Gets them a broader view of their field
  • Saves time in getting the answers they need
  • Has trusted and reliable content
  • Is an easy to use interface

Introduction

This case study is based on a May 2017 survey of Scopus customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service.

Challenges

Students, faculty and researchers at institutions throughout the world face a variety of challenges in navigating the scholarly information landscape. Survey respondents credit Scopus most often in supporting their work in these key ways:

• 65% use it for tracking citations and/or publications (their own or another author)
• 62% use it to keep themselves informed about advances in their area of expertise/field/discipline
• 46% use it to get ideas for a new research project, direction for their thesis, or to plan experiments
• 38% use it for reading for a course assignment or research project

Use Case

Survey respondents identify three Scopus features in particular that are most valuable to their workflow:

• 75% – Searching for documents and analyzing search results
• 49% – Searching for and viewing their or another author’s profile
• 45% – Exporting documents and citations, and creating bibliographies

Results

66% of survey respondents have used both Scopus and Web of Science. Scopus earns top scores from users in the following areas:

• 89% agree that they prefer Scopus over Web of Science
• 88% agree that it is easier to refine, sort and rank Scopus search results than those on Web of Science
• 88% agree that Scopus delivers more relevant search results when compared to Web of Science
• 86% agree that coverage of their field is broader and more accurate on Scopus than Web of Science
• 86% agree that the number of titles and publishers indexed by Scopus is more than Web of Science