In January of this year, Elsevier launched a new service that will benefit authors and editors alike. CiteAlert is a unique service that automatically generates citation notifications and sends them – free of charge – to the authors who have been cited, as long as the cited journal is one of the 16,450 that have been indexed by Scopus.

Authors of referenced articles receive a CiteAlert email, which includes both authors of articles in Elsevier-published journals, and authors from non-Elsevier-published journals, as long as the journal is indexed by Scopus. This is quite likely, since Scopus indexes journals from more than 4,000 publishers.

“We launched CiteAlert in response to the need for a user-friendly service to keep authors up-to-date and alerted to newly published research in their area of specialization. Extensive research and user testing indicated that this would be a very welcome and valuable research tool.” Says Liz Holmes, Global Project Manager, Elsevier Marketing Communications. During the pilot-project, 50% of authors indicated that the research in the article to which they were alerted was new to them, and relevant to their current research.

When an article is published all cited authors will receive an automated weekly alert, listing the Elsevier articles that have cited their article. Self-citations are not included in the alert.

So far, this service is able to generate citation information for all Scopus journals since 2005. The most recent citations are collected weekly, and notifications sent based on the newly published information.

Expanding journals’ reach
In addition to the increased exposure that the service provides, CiteAlert also opens up the community of researchers in any given field, expanding out beyond the Elsevier community, into the research community. CiteAlert has the potential to help improve a journal’s reputation or standing in the community, by indicating each author and expert who has been published – or been cited – in that journal.

“Journal editors know that any opportunity to expand the community in their field is an opportunity to build the journal’s reputation and impact,” Holmes explains, “and CiteAlert can be another way to do just that.”

For Elsevier, the service is another step forward in expanding the scientific network and breaking down barriers. This kind of cross-border, cross-journal connectivity will contribute to a wider scientific community, as much by the introduction of the fresh new faces in science as by the continuous recognition of field experts.

Continuous improvement
Staying true to Elsevier’s commitment to continuous improvement, Marketing Communications is already busy discussing the next phase of improvements to the three-month-old service. “User feedback is, of course, our best indicator of desired next steps,” says Holmes, “but we’ll also look at technical and cost implications while developing this first phase of improvements.”

For now, a   sample citation notification is available, and all authors should already be receiving their free notifications. There is no need to sign up or log into the service, but authors are free to opt-out if they prefer not to receive the reports.

To cite this article, please use: Toni Bellanca, “CiteAlert: collaboration through citation reporting”, Elsevier Editors’ Update, Issue 26, May 2009

Useful links

  CiteAlert