The development of policy for the SCOPUS Citation System: Part 1: the work of the Content Selection Advisory Board 2010-2011
The development of policy for the SCOPUS Citation System: Part 1: the work of the Content Selection Advisory Board 2010-2011
Bibliometrics is a statistical science which has a profound influence on behaviours and resource allocation across the global academic ecosystem. It affects the allocation of energies and resources by researchers, authors, journals, publishers, universities, corporations and governments.
Bibliometrics is primarily a product of two major information systems: The Web of Science, from Clarivate Analytics, and SCOPUS from Elsevier BV of the Netherlands. Both products are hugely complex systems. They must be managed and organised in an ordered and structured manner to be effective, through policies which describe the rules of content accrual, processing and delivery to its customers.
Trust and Quality Assurance are central to the societal and commercial value of bibliometric systems. The designers of SCOPUS, with which I am most familiar, determined at the outset in 2003-2004 that content accrual would be managed through an external board of advisors, the SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board (CSAB).
I have been privileged to be a member of the CSAB as the Subject Chair for Medicine since the outset of the current CSAB programme in 2009. This role has engaged me in the development of the SCOPUS Title Evaluation Platform (STEP); the major expansion and diversification of SCOPUS content; the diversification of bibliometrics; the growth of open access publishing; the move from subscription based to article processing fee based commerce; and the massive growth of sophisticated publication fraud; and the emergence of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence systems.
In this essay, I seek to describe the work of the Board in terms of the development of its policy framework over the formative period 2010-2011.
SCOPUS, Content Selection Advisory Board, Policy, Corporate Strategy Bibliometrics: Publishing Ethics, Publication Malpractice, Scopus Title Evaluation Platform (STEP)
University of Southampton
Rew, David
36dcc3ad-2379-4b61-a468-5c623d796887
6 February 2026
Rew, David
36dcc3ad-2379-4b61-a468-5c623d796887
Rew, David
(2026)
The development of policy for the SCOPUS Citation System: Part 1: the work of the Content Selection Advisory Board 2010-2011
(Essays on the Adjudication of Quality in the Global Academic Literature)
University of Southampton
40pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
Bibliometrics is a statistical science which has a profound influence on behaviours and resource allocation across the global academic ecosystem. It affects the allocation of energies and resources by researchers, authors, journals, publishers, universities, corporations and governments.
Bibliometrics is primarily a product of two major information systems: The Web of Science, from Clarivate Analytics, and SCOPUS from Elsevier BV of the Netherlands. Both products are hugely complex systems. They must be managed and organised in an ordered and structured manner to be effective, through policies which describe the rules of content accrual, processing and delivery to its customers.
Trust and Quality Assurance are central to the societal and commercial value of bibliometric systems. The designers of SCOPUS, with which I am most familiar, determined at the outset in 2003-2004 that content accrual would be managed through an external board of advisors, the SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board (CSAB).
I have been privileged to be a member of the CSAB as the Subject Chair for Medicine since the outset of the current CSAB programme in 2009. This role has engaged me in the development of the SCOPUS Title Evaluation Platform (STEP); the major expansion and diversification of SCOPUS content; the diversification of bibliometrics; the growth of open access publishing; the move from subscription based to article processing fee based commerce; and the massive growth of sophisticated publication fraud; and the emergence of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence systems.
In this essay, I seek to describe the work of the Board in terms of the development of its policy framework over the formative period 2010-2011.
Text
SCOPUS CSAB & Policies 2010-11 DRew working paper 06.02.2026
- Author's Original
More information
Published date: 6 February 2026
Additional Information:
David Rew, MA MB MChir (Cambridge) FRCS (London)
Honorary Consultant Surgeon to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, UK
And to the Clinical Informatics Research Unit.
Former Editor in Chief of the EJSO, The European Journal of Surgical Oncology, 2003-2009
Subject Chair for Medicine to the SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board, Elsevier BV,
The Netherlands, 2009 to the Present
Keywords:
SCOPUS, Content Selection Advisory Board, Policy, Corporate Strategy Bibliometrics: Publishing Ethics, Publication Malpractice, Scopus Title Evaluation Platform (STEP)
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 508986
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/508986
PURE UUID: 3f80fb59-0f00-4047-aba8-6ab7628cf438
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 09 Feb 2026 17:56
Last modified: 21 Feb 2026 03:02
Export record
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
