Gaps in affiliation indexing in Scopus and PubMed

Objective: The authors sought to determine whether unexpected gaps existed in Scopus’s author affiliation indexing of publications written by the University of Nebraska Medical Center or Nebraska Medicine (UNMC/NM) authors during 2014. Methods: First, we compared Scopus affiliation identifier search results to PubMed affiliation keyword search results. Then, we searched Scopus using affiliation keywords (UNMC, etc.) and compared the results to PubMed affiliation keyword and Scopus affiliation identifier searches. Results: We found that Scopus’s records for approximately 7% of UNMC/NM authors’ publications lacked appropriate UNMC/NM author affiliation identifiers, and many journals’ publishers were supplying incomplete author affiliation information to PubMed. Conclusions: Institutions relying on Scopus to track their impact should determine whether Scopus’s affiliation identifiers will, in fact, identify all articles published by their authors and investigators.