Dimensions: A Competitor to Scopus and the Web of Science?
Mike Thelwall
TL;DR
This paper evaluates Dimensions as a potential alternative to Scopus and Web of Science for impact assessment, showing high citation correlation and extensive coverage in Food Science research and a sample of Scopus articles.
Contribution
It provides an empirical comparison demonstrating Dimensions' viability as a comprehensive scholarly database for citation analysis.
Findings
High correlation (0.96) between Dimensions and Scopus citation counts.
97% of Scopus articles with DOIs are found in Dimensions.
Dimensions shows similar average citation counts to Scopus.
Abstract
Dimensions is a partly free scholarly database launched by Digital Science in January 2018. Dimensions includes journal articles and citation counts, making it a potential new source of impact data. This article explores the value of Dimensions from an impact assessment perspective with an examination of Food Science research 2008-2018 and a random sample of 10,000 Scopus articles from 2012. The results include high correlations between citation counts from Scopus and Dimensions (0.96 by narrow field in 2012) as well as similar average counts. Almost all Scopus articles with DOIs were found in Dimensions (97% in 2012). Thus, the scholarly database component of Dimensions seems to be a plausible alternative to Scopus and the Web of Science for general citation analyses and for citation data in support of some types of research evaluations.
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