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EDITORIAL RUSSIAN SCIENCE CITATION INDEX DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2013.5.1
RSCI – The Russian Science Citation Index is a bibliographic database of scientific publications by Russian scientists developed in response to the challenges of modern times in the administration. At the same time, the RSCI is a realization of the science-metric method of the changes in the effectiveness of scientific activity. In the cycle of our editorials, we introduce our readers to the novelty of the administration of scientific activity. Following DOI (editorial in № 3, 2013), it was the RSCI’s turn. In this article, we address the topic of indices and their role in the modern scientific and research world. All the good times, when authors thought only about the scientific value and originality of their works, have passed. When meeting, scientists used to discuss the new issues that were described, what to research and which books to read or to write. However, as a «scientist», one can now only ask another «scientist» «What is your h-index?» Only people tend to be incompetent; to quote a character in a famous movie, say: «Mind your Ps and Qs!» Further, if, three years ago, the majority of scientists would respond in such a way, today, really outstanding scientists, who no longer need to measure their index and other mechanistic evaluations, can only be forgiving. Others measure and reflect in this way as well. We have replaced all the variety in evaluations (new, interesting, useful, etc.) with one measuring device that has an incomprehensible scale. Our attitude towards the phenomenon of indexing is inconsistent enough. On the one hand, fussing around has contributed nothing to science and will make nobody a scientist. But, on the other hand, it is impossible to not be modern and to not participate in the trends that are evident; because of political decisions, they cannot be dismissed. However, there is also the «third» issue, which is the benefit to researchers. As applied to the RSCI, we see the benefit in the opportunity to evaluate the requirements of our work by reviewing citations, to add the publications that are issued in journals that are not a part of the RSCI and to combine works that have been created under various last names (which is relevant to individuals who have changed names) and that are affiliated with different places of work.
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6 In reality, the administration of scientific activity has become a problem, as it is time-consuming, technological and requires, if not knowledge, certainly special skills. This has resulted in the emergence of new businesses, such as those engaged in the coordination of the scientific profile of a scientist. Indeed, it may be easier and more expedient to delegate the work to others and to start working hard on endeavors that are actually scientific, and to write, and write, and write. Attempts to create science-metric systems started in the 19th century. In 1873, Shepard’s Citations was created, which is an index of legal documents. In 1979, Index Medicus, an index of scientific publications on medicine was established. The institutional systems are established in the form of institutes for scientific information. In 1952, in the USSR, the Institute for Scientific Information, USSR Academy of Sciences (renamed The All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information) was established. In 1960, in the United States, the Institute for Scientific Information, which produced the Science Citation Index-SCI, was established. In China, indexing is carried out using several systems: the Chinese Science Citation Index, the China Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations, and the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index. In Japan, there is a national citation index called the «Citation Database for Japanese Papers» and in Taiwan, there is the Taiwan Humanities Citation Index. The Russian Science Citation Index has been under development since 2005 by the Scientific Electronic Library (eLIBRARY.ru).1 An analytical toolkit for the Science Index has been developed that is based on the RSCI database to enable users to obtain the necessary data about publications and citations of articles. The RSCI performs many functions; in various capacities, it is directly incorporated into important social, scientific and educational processes. Thus, in November 2013, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation developed a draft of «Provisions on the rules of formation of a list of peer-reviewed scientific journals» pursuant to which the basic scientific results of dissertations, upon the competition of a scientific degree of a candidate of sciences and upon the competition of a scientific degree of a doctor of sciences, should be published. Paragraph 12 of the Order draft has established that the journals that are included in the list are required to be registered in the Russian Science Citation Index (hereinafter referred to as RSCI) and to provide information to the index about published articles on a regular basis. The Russian Federation recognizes the foreign citation indexes, Web of Science and Scopus, in its national regulatory legal acts. So, in the aforementioned Order, the journals claiming VAK status are divided into two groups: 1) those that are relevant enough to perform the difficult requirements established by the order 1
Russian Science Citation Index // Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. URL: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ %D0%EE%F1%F1%E8%E9%F1%EA%E8%E9_%E8%ED%E4%E5%EA%F1_%ED%E0%F3%F7%E D%EE%E3%EE_%F6%E8%F2%E8%F0%EE%E2%E0%ED%E8%FF.
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of the Ministry of Education and Science; 2) those registered in Web of Science and Scopus, which is sufficient for inclusion into the list. For the journal itself, not only does a physical presence in the RSCI matter, but there also is a two-year impact factor, which must not be less than the criteria value that was established by the Commission, taking into account the characteristics of the various academic disciplines of scientists and related fields of science. These values have not yet been established, but the process is moving in a direction that will increase the status of the RSCI. The RSCI is not only an indexing system; first, it is a database that contains information about the publications in the journals that are included in it. If desired, the journals can place full-text articles in the RSCI. The Russian Science Citation Index is positioned to be a national information-analytical system. Today, the system has accumulated more than 4,7 million publications and more than 4000 journals. Seventeen hundred journals are available online in eLibrary.ru. It offers relevant scientific and bibliographic information to researchers. The system comprises not only articles, but also reports from scientific conferences, tutorials, books, patents and dissertations. So far, a project is under development to fill the database with publications for the period from 2003-2013. This retrospective vector of work is of great importance, as it will essentially expand the methodological base of modern researchers. The Law and Modern State journal, which is published in Russian and English, is included in the RSCI. Also, as we have cited, our reading group has been formed. Svetlana Vladimirovna Boshno, Editor-in-Chief