Bucaramanga, Colombia – September 16, 2005 — The founders of the Universidad Industrial de Santander intended the institution to be a source for processing and generating knowledge in science and technology; thereby spurring the industrial development of the northeastern region of Colombia. According to the Thomson Scientific produced Essential Science IndicatorsSM, Colombia ranks 56th out of 146 countries in total citations to papers published in 21 fields. With their investment in the Science Citation Index ExpandedTM portion of Web of Science ®, the university aims to further advance their position as a major player on the worldwide research stage.
Web of Science is a major component of ISI Web of KnowledgeSM , which offers seamless access to the highest quality content, evaluation tools, and bibliographic management products.
A premier Colombian university, Universidad Industrial de Santander has taken a significant step toward expanding their research capabilities with the purchase of the Science Citation Index Expanded portion of Web of Science.
About the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS)
Founded in 1948, the UIS is located in Bucaramanga , the capital of the Colombian department of Santander . Much of the curriculum focuses on engineering, in particular chemical, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, as well as metallurgy and industrial design. The University’s mission is to educate individuals of high ethical, political, and professional quality; to disseminate knowledge; to conserve and reinterpret culture; and to actively lead change for the betterment of community life.
The University is in close proximity to the headquarters of the Colombian Oil Corporation (Empresa Colombiana del Petróleo, or ECOPETROL) and the Colombian Petroleum Institute (Instituto Colombiano del Petróleo, or ICP), the former being the national oil company of Colombia. Thanks to the historic ties these institutions have maintained with the university, important programs in Petroleum Engineering and Geology have been developed. Many engineers from ECOPETROL and ICP are graduates from the UIS.
The UIS Investment
Collectively the three indexes that comprise Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index®, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index® cover nearly 8,900 of the world’s most influential scholarly journals, offering complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts, and cited references .
Science Citation Index Expanded provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in approximately 5,900 scholarly science and technical journals covering more than 150 disciplines.
In celebration of their research community gaining access to the Science Citation Index Expanded module of Web of Science, the UIS and Thomson Scientific held a day-long event, featuring engaging speeches and informative presentations.
The Event: Enhancing Scientific and Scholarly Research through the ISI Web of Knowledge Platform
Held in the historic Casona “La Perla” building at the UIS, the event was attended by more than 100 university officials, faculty, staff and students from UIS and other Colombian Universities. The Casona not only has the distinction of being the first building on the university’s campus in 1954 after the university moved its installations north from downtown Bucaramanga, but also has historical significance as a way station to travelers en route to neighboring farms on the nearby Suratá river and as a stopping point for various armies during Colombia’s War of 1000 Days (guerra de los mil días).
The event received extensive local and national press coverage prior to and immediately following the event. For copies in Spanish of articles covering the event, please click on the titles below.
Following a recitation of both the Colombian national anthem and the Departmental (state) anthem of Santander, Dr. Álvaro Beltrán Pinzón , the Rector ( Dean ) of the Universidad UIS, offered opening remarks by welcoming university attendees and Thomson Scientific staff. Rector Beltrán reiterated the UIS mission, and remarked how Thomson is the world leader in scientific information publishing. Rector Beltrán was enthusiastic as he explained the important role Science Citation Index Expanded will play in advancing the quality of research conducted at the university, helping it to become a major contributor to research conducted worldwide.
After greeting the university officials and attendees and thanking them for there support of Thomson Scientific, Carlos Martinez, director, Latin America at Thomson Scientific commenced with a presentation entitled “Thomson Scientific: Linking Scientific and Scholarly Research in the 21 st Century.” Martinez provided an overview of the Thomson Scientific tradition of excellence and long-standing reputation for providing the global research community with the highest-quality products and services.
“What began as ISI® (acquired by The Thomson Corporation in 1992), has become an established leader in providing access to high-value, essential information for researchers and scholars worldwide for over 45 years,” explained Martinez . “Thomson Scientific is a leading secondary publisher, focusing on multidisciplinary scholarly journal literature and produces some of the most heavily used, unique information solutions for researchers and information professionals. We provide integrated information solutions delivered by the most innovative technologies.”
His presentation continued with an overview of the markets that Thomson Scientific serves, reaching nearly 20 million customers worldwide. Martinez also explained Thomson Scientific and The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com). “Thomson Scientific is a business of The Thomson Corporation, and its products assist professionals at every stage of research and development—from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution.”
The presentation concluded with an overview of the Thomson Scientific product offerings, and explaining that there are more than 200 customers in Latin America and worldwide there are 2,550 customers in 80 of 134 targeted countries. Martinez re-affirmed the Thomson Scientific commitment to its Latin American customers. He commented that the Universidad Industrial de Santader investment in the Web of Science would bring the university closer to fulfilling its goal of being a major contributor to world-class research.
Next, Paul Torpey , global sales support manager at Thomson Scientific, presented “ISI Web of Knowledge: A Premiere Platform for Scientific and Scholarly Research.” Torpey began with an overview of scientific trends in Colombia , pointing out that the total number of papers authored by Colombian researchers rose from just over 500 in 1981 to nearly 3,500 in 2004. The total number of citations to Colombian authored papers also increased from approximately 1,000 in 1981 to more than 9,000 in 2004. Equally impressive is the impact (citations per paper) also increased from roughly 1.5 in 1981 to nearly 3.0 in 2004. Torpey then provided an overview of ISI Web of Knowledge.
“The ISI Web of Knowledge core content is the journal and patent literature, research evaluation resources, and bibliographic management tools, which are complemented by carefully selected partner content to provide “deep, diverse coverage of published research and technology,” explained Torpey.
He concluded by giving in-depth examples of each of the components within the ISI Web of Knowledge platform, including Current Contents Connect®, Derwent Innovation Index®, BIOSIS Previews®, EndNote,sup>®, and Journal Citation Reports®. He highlighted the unique Web of Science feature, Cited Reference Searching— which allows users to navigate forward, backward, and through the multidisciplinary literature to uncover all the information relevant to their work. He also emphasized the new Century of Science initiative, which adds approximately 850,000 articles from more than 200 carefully-selected journals from the published research of the first half (1900-1944) of the 20 th century to Web of Science.
Following Torpey, José Claudio Santos, regional manager at Thomson Scientific, provided an in-depth overview of three key components of ISI Web of Knowledge: Web of Science, Current Contents Connect and Journal Citation Reports on the Web. First, Santos explained that Web of Science enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from nearly 8,900 of the world’s most influential research journals. He detailed the Web of Science powerful search capabilities, which enable users to instantly find the most relevant information to their research, and the new Analyze Tool that allows users to analyze and refine results by author, publication year, journal subject category, institution, and language or source title.
Next, Santos focused on Current Contents Connect—the multidisciplinary current awareness resource that provides access to complete table of contents, and bibliographic information from nearly 8,000 leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books and proceedings published worldwide. Specifically, he detailed the Current Contents eSearch and eFirst technology. Current ContentseSearch 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 went on to explain that eFirst significantly enhances the value of CC Connect by providing access to the bibliographic information from peer reviewed journal articles in electronic form before the complete journal issue is published. “eFirst offers the author and user communities the advantage of a shortened publishing cycle, and benefits publishers by helping them to differentiate between their electronic and print products,” continued Santos .
He wrapped-up his talk with a presentation on Journal Citation Reports on the Web . Available in science and the social science editions and collectively covering approximately 7,000 journals within 200 disciplines, the statistical data in JCRWeb provides a systematic and objective way to determine journals with the highest impact within a given subject area.
Up again, Paul Torpey concluded the formal presentations with “Essential Science Indicators: An Analytical Look at the Scientific Landscape”. He began by discussing ISI Web of Knowledge stating that the goal 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. As an integral part of ISI Web of Knowledge, Torpey 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.
A question and answer session followed, which was facilitated by Thomson Scientific. Afterward, Thomson Scientific awarded UIS with a plaque in commemoration of their dedication to scientific and scholarly research. The plaque was presented by Carlos Martinez on behalf of Thomson Scientific and was accepted by Rector Beltrán on behalf of the University. The presentation of the plaque was followed by a catered lunch hosted by Thomson Scientific within the Casona “La Perla”.
Thomson Scientific staff and key University officials capped off the day with a celebratory dinner held on the rooftop of the luxurious Hotel Dann Carlton in downtown Bucaramanga overlooking the city and the Colombian Andes.
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 and Thomson Scientific officials seated at the commencement of the event, following renditions of the national anthem of Colombia and the departmental (state) anthem of Santander . From left to right: Ing. Oscar Gualdrón, Director of Research (Director de Investigaciones), UIS; Lucila Niño Bautista, Vice-Dean for Academics (Vicerrectora Académica), UIS; Álvaro Beltrán Pinzón, Dean (Rector), UIS; Carlos Martinez, Director, Latin America and the Caribbean, Thomson Scientific; and Ing. Orlando Camacho, Library Director (Director de Biblioteca), UIS.'))
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 Álvaro Beltrán in recognition of the UIS’ contribution to scientific and scholarly research in Colombia through the acquisition of Web of Science.'))
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, UIS; José Claudio Santos , Thomson Scientific; Ing. Orlando Camacho, UIS; María Luisa Abello, Interpreter; and Luís Serrano, Customer Trainer, Mexico and Central America , Thomson Scientific.'))
