A comparison of the Web of Science and publication-level classification systems of science

Highlights：

• A classification system A is preferable to B when the normalization procedure based on the former performs better than the one based on the latter.

• Performance is assessed in terms of a graphical and a numerical test that use both classification systems for evaluation purposes.

• A publication-level algorithmically constructed system of 5,119 clusters is found to dominate a second one of 1,363 clusters.

• Although the system at the highest granularity level and the Web of Science journal-level system are non-comparable, we recommend the former.

摘要

•A classification system A is preferable to B when the normalization procedure based on the former performs better than the one based on the latter.•Performance is assessed in terms of a graphical and a numerical test that use both classification systems for evaluation purposes.•A publication-level algorithmically constructed system of 5,119 clusters is found to dominate a second one of 1,363 clusters.•Although the system at the highest granularity level and the Web of Science journal-level system are non-comparable, we recommend the former.

论文关键词：Classification systems of science,Journal-level versus publication-level systems,Field-normalization

论文评审过程：Received 5 September 2016, Accepted 24 October 2016, Available online 18 November 2016, Version of Record 18 November 2016.