Santiago, Chile April 9, 2003 - Today, Thomson ISI and the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Cientifica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) celebrated the purchase of all three editions of ISI Web of Science®; Science Citation Index ExpandedTM, Social Sciences Citation Index® , Arts & Humanities Citation Index® - including backfiles to 1988. A key component of ISI Web of KnowledgeSM, ISI Web of Science indexes approximately 8,500 of the world’s most influential scholarly journals to provide users with complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts, and cited references from content back to 1945. CONICYT has made ISI Web of Science available to 25 public Chilean institutions throughout the country. After Brazil's CAPES consortium, CONICYT is the second largest consortium in Latin America.
Founded in 1967, CONICYT was formerly an advisory body to the Chilean government in science and technology matters. Focusing on the development of Chilean science and technology in order to improve economic and political conditions in the country, CONICYT seeks to define science and technology policy, promote and finance science and technology research programs and projects, promote international cooperation between Chilean scientists and institutions with their foreign counterparts, support the training and renewal of human resources, support the mobility of researchers and investment in Chile, facilitate access to the general public and scientists to science and technology, and increase public awareness and understanding of the benefits that accrues to the country as a result of its investment on scientific and technological research.
Opening Remarks
More than 200 attendees representing key decision makers, researchers, faculty, and students from among the 25 consortium member institutions throughout Chile were on hand to celebrate at the Hotel Crown Plaza in the nation's capital of Santiago.
The special event began with opening remarks by María Cristina Lazo, Executive Director, CONICYT who welcomed attendees and remarked on the relevance of the event and the significance of the consortium’s purchase of ISI Web of Science. Ms. Lazo then introduced Vin Caraher, Executive Vice President, Academic and Government Markets, Thomson
Caraher’s presentation entitled "Thomson ISI: Linking Scientific and Scholarly Research in the 21st Century" provided a historic overview of ISI including its long-standing reputation for high quality products and services along with its commitment to serving the unique needs of diverse markets.
Caraher then turned the podium over to Keith MacGregor, Senior Vice President, The Americas, Europe, Middle East, & Africa, Thomson ISI whose presentation—The ISI Database: Reflecting the Best of International and Regional Research—emphasized the mission of ISI to provide evaluated coverage of multidisciplinary, global research information by selecting the highest quality content. MacGregor further explained that journals selected for inclusion into the ISI database must meet certain criteria including publishing standards (now particularly important for electronic journals), editorial content, the enrichment of ISI content, citation rates, international diversity, and regional coverage.
Jeff Clovis, Director of Thomson Scientific Product Support was next with his presentations, "ISI Web of Knowledge: a Premiere Platform for Scientific and Scholarly Research" and "ISI Essential Science Indicators: An Analytical Look at the Scientific Landscape". Clovis began by discussing ISI Web of Knowledge—the dynamic, integrated, Web-based platform that integrates high quality content and tools to access, analyze, and manage research information. Clovis stated that the goal of ISI Web of Knowledge is to enhance the entire research process by allowing both novice and expert users to quickly locate the essential, relevant information they need, when the need it, directly from the desktop. Clovis also explained that ISI Essential Science Indicators is an evaluation tool that helps researchers, administrators, deans, and directors measure the productivity, influence, and impact of worldwide research activity in 22 fields of science and the social sciences. He added that ISI Essential Science Indicators is an integral part of ISI Web of Knowledge.
José Claudio Santos, Regional Manager, Thomson ISI concluded the formalities with presentations of three key components of ISI Web of Knowledge: ISI Web of Science, ISI Current Contents Connect® (CC Connect®) and Journal Citation Reports®; on the Web (JCR Web®). First, Santos explained that ISI Web of Science enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from nearly 8,500 of the most influential research journals in the world. Santos detailed the powerful search capabilities of ISI Web of Science that allow users to quickly find the most relevant information to their research. Santos also explained cited reference searching¿the unique ISI Web of Science feature that allows users to navigate through an era, taking a seminal idea, researching its origins, and discovering its impact over time.
Next, Santos focused on ISI Current Contents Connect—the multidisciplinary current awareness resource that provides access to complete table of contents, and bibliographic information from the world’s leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books and proceedings. Santos detailed the Current Contents eSearch technology that applies advanced search criteria to mine the content of pre-evaluated and selected Web sites. Current Contents eSearch extracts the relevant documents within each site to deliver essential information about preprints, funding and grants, and other research activities (proceedings, dissertations, meeting abstracts, and reviews of scholarly Web sites, explained Santos.
Santos’ final presentation outlined ISI Journal Citation Reports on the Web, explaining that the statistical data in JCR Web provides a systematic and objective way to determine journals with the highest impact within a given subject area. JCR Web is available in science and the social science editions, collectively covering approximately 7,000 journals within 200 disciplines.
The event culminated in Vin Caraher presenting Ms. Lazo with a plaque in recognition of CONICYT's commitment to scientific and scholarly research in Chile.
Following the presentations, attendees enjoyed a delicious lunch provided by the Hotel Crown Plaza.
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