Identification of national research output using Scopus/Web of Science Core Collection: a revisit and further investigation

Identification of national research output is very common in bibliometric analyses and research evaluation. Searching appropriate country/territory names and using the country/territory refinement option are two methods provided by Scopus/Web of Science Core Collection to directly identify national research output. Using multi-source data, a recent but representative paper published in Scientometrics mapped computer science research in Africa, which was an important supplement to the existing literature. Forty-eight sub-Saharan African country/territory names were adopted to search in the country/territory field in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection respectively to identify research output of sub-Saharan Africa. By repeating the above study, we find that the identification method is not always used accurately in practice, which may have some effect on the reliability of research. In addition, we further find that the above two national research output identification methods obtain different results for some countries/territories when using the Scopus database. Therefore, we probe this anomaly and try to provide explanations and give follow-up suggestions. We hope that the information conveyed in this brief communication will promote scholars to use the bibliographic databases more carefully in identifying national research output and provide more detailed data retrieval information to readers. At the same time, the providers of bibliographic databases should improve their products constantly based on recommendations from academics.