Retrieval effectiveness of Scopus and Web of Science based on three types of subject metadata: a comparative study in Economics

Abstract

The study tried to measure the retrieval effectiveness of Scopus and Web of Science databases and, simultaneously, to measure the resource description capabilities of social tags in comparison with standard subject metadata like LCSH descriptors and SLSH terms. The study results show that both databases produce more or less the same type of Average Mean Precision (AMP), but comparatively, WOS (AMP=2.44) has a higher AMP than Scopus (AMP=2.30). In the case of Average Mean Relative Recall (AMRR), the study indicates that Scopus (AMRR=0.73) has a higher AMRR than WOS (AMRR=0.44). The study also reveals that social tags (MP=2.24) have lower Mean Precision (MP) than other metadata in Scopus, but social tags (2.46) have higher MP in the WOS database. In the case of Mean Relative Recall (MRR), the study found that social tags (MRR=0.62 in Scopus & MR=0.38 in WOS) have the same MRR as LCSH descriptors in Scopus and WOS databases, where SLSH terms have higher MRR than other subject metadata. Moreover, the study concludes that social tags can describe and retrieve Economics documents like standard metadata (LCSH descriptors and SLSH terms).