Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index
Company type	Proprietary database
Industry	Bibliometrics, Academic publishing
Predecessor	Science Citation Index
Founded	1972
Founder	Institute for Scientific Information
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Citation index of social sciences journals
Parent	Clarivate Analytics

The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is a proprietary citation index developed and maintained by Clarivate Analytics. Initially created by the Institute for Scientific Information as an extension of the Science Citation Index, SSCI catalogs more than 3,400 journals spanning 58 social science fields from 1985 onward, containing 122 million cited references dating back to 1900. Additionally, it incorporates roughly 3,500 selected entries from prominent scientific and technical periodicals. The platform provides sophisticated search capabilities, including cited reference retrieval and queries by author, topic, or title. Although SSCI facilitates comprehensive bibliometric research and analysis, it has faced criticism for perceived ideological partiality and a predominant focus on English-language sources.

Overview

The SSCI database indexes about 3,400 scholarly journals within the social sciences, covering over 50 distinct disciplines. Access is granted through the subscription-based Web of Science platform. It monitors citations among articles, enabling in-depth bibliometric evaluations. Users can explore indexed journals via the Master Journal List by searching for authors, titles, or citations. The Institute for Scientific Information launched SSCI in 1972; its founder Eugene Garfield had earlier obtained funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 1961 to develop a Genetics Citation Index that evolved into the Science Citation Index. In 2017, Clarivate acquired ownership of SSCI.

Criticism

Philip Altbach has criticized SSCI for privileging English-language and American journals while marginalizing publications in other languages. Likewise, June Yichun Liu pointed out that only two percent of SSCI-listed works originate from developing countries, artificially elevating nations such as Taiwan. This imbalance affects academic discourse and funding opportunities by narrowing research diversity. Research by Yusuf Ziya Olpak and Muhammet Arican revealed that merely 2.138% of SSCI articles pertain to Turkey, with just 0.707% being highly cited, suggesting underrepresentation of Turkish scholarship. Conversely, over half of indexed articles include U.S.-based contributions, underscoring the dominance of English-language research outputs. Citation averages further highlight disparities: Turkey’s average stands at 6.653 compared with Taiwan’s 17.35, Germany’s 17.29, and Spain’s 12.77—a discrepancy partially attributed to journal removals.

John B. Davis cautioned against relying heavily on SSCI-derived impact rankings when assessing academic productivity, noting that research situated at economics’ periphery is less frequently published in leading journals, which distorts evaluations. Loet Leydesdorff emphasized methodological difficulties in correlating social science disciplines relative to natural sciences due to social sciences defining their domains both by content and analytical frameworks. He also observed that international recognition of specialty clusters within SSCI remains limited and unstable.

Despite these critiques, certain disciplines exhibit consistency within SSCI subsets. For instance, over the past twenty years information science has coalesced under the category 'library and information science,' with Leydesdorff identifying a stable core group of journals in this area. Furthermore, he noted that integrating SSCI with the Science Citation Index (SCI) provides fresh insights into journals’ functions within scholarly networks. Institutional repositories are notably present only within the library and information science subset of SSCI—a feature Yi-Ping Liao and Tsu-Jui Ma suggest could be expanded across other SSCI categories to enhance academic research infrastructure.

Ideological bias

A number of academics, among them Eric Chiang and Daniel Klein, have pointed out possible ideological partiality within the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Their 2003 study examined a sample of 1,768 articles, using criteria such as consistency and assertiveness to identify ideological tendencies. They described ideological orientation as an entity's inclination to prioritize or articulate specific viewpoints relative to a standard. Importantly, their findings revealed that social democratic viewpoints are predominantly represented in the social sciences and humanities covered by SSCI. Their analysis concluded that there is a distinct preference for 'Social Democratic' content, which may be influenced by the overrepresentation of social democratic journals in the index.

Patterns and citations

While citation frequencies in SSCI are frequently associated with the quality of research, some contend they more accurately reflect the impact and prominence of works. Investigators Dragan Ivanović and Yuh-Shan Ho studied citation patterns within the Information Science and Library Science (IS&LS) disciplines indexed by SSCI, observing that:

The rise in highly cited publications corresponds with the overall increase in IS&LS outputs throughout the past century.
Between 1972 and 1994, there was a notable growth in citations to studies from computer science, medicine, psychology, social sciences, and general science fields.
David W. Bates emerges as the most prolific author in IS&LS, with Joan S. Ash leading in publications where she is first or corresponding author.
Harvard University holds the top position for total highly cited articles, whereas the University of Maryland leads in first and corresponding authorship.
Researchers based in the United States account for more than two-thirds of all citations, indicating their dominance in this area.

References

Overview

Criticism

Ideological bias

Patterns and citations

See also

References