An exploratory study on the publication stages of early access articles in different bibliographic databases: A case study of IEEE journals

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly Communication
• Information Science

Background:

• Bibliographic databases increasingly include Early Access (EA) articles.
• Understanding the publication stage of EA articles is crucial for accurate citation and discoverability.
• Discrepancies in how EA articles are indexed across databases can lead to inconsistencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and compare the differences in publication stages of Early Access (EA) articles across three major bibliographic databases: Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and Engineering Village Compendex.
• To investigate the prevalence and complexity of these differences within IEEE journals.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of data sets and publication stage modes for EA articles.
• Quantitative analysis of record counts, proportions, and journal distributions across publication stage modes.
• Examination of 47 IEEE journals to identify variations in EA article indexing.

Main Results:

• Identified 7 sub-data sets and 26 distinct publication stage modes, including 14 undifferentiated and 12 differentiated modes.
• While the proportion of EA records in differentiated modes was often below 1.0%, the absolute number of records with stage differences reached 2516.
• A significant number of IEEE journals (40 out of 47) exhibited one or more differentiated publication stage modes, with one journal showing 18 modes.

Conclusions:

• Significant and complex differences exist in the publication stage categorization of Early Access articles across Web of Science, Scopus, and Engineering Village.
• These discrepancies are pervasive within IEEE journals, affecting both individual articles and journal-level indexing.
• The findings highlight the need for greater standardization and clarity in the indexing of Early Access articles across major bibliographic databases.