IRTCES News: The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters announced on May 27, 2008 that 700 new regional journals have been added to Web of Science. The newly identified collection contains journals that typically target a regional rather than international audience by approaching subjects from a local perspective or focusing on particular topics of regional interest. For more than two years, Thomson Reuters has reviewed thousands of regional journals in all areas of science, social science and arts and humanities. Although selection criteria for a regional journal are fundamentally the same as for an international journal, the importance of the regional journal is measured in terms of the specificity of its content rather than in its citation impact.

International Journal of Sediment Research (IJSR) is one of the journals that have been added to Web of Science. IJSR is an international scientific journal published by the International Research and Training Centre on Erosion and sedimentation (IRTCES). The Journal was inaugurated in 1986 and has been publishing sediment-related studies with emphasis on engineering sedimentation problems. It is devoted exclusively to the reporting of progresses in the mechanics of sediment transport and fluvial processes and what are related to geography, geomorphology, soil erosion, sediment yield, soil conservation, environmental and ecological impacts of sedimentation, social and economic effects of sedimentation and its assessment. Special attention is paid to engineering problems related to sedimentation and erosion, and mainly for readers outside of China. It has set up a good reputation worldwide. Many renowned scholars highly assess the Journal. The Journal publishes 4 issues a year since 1998. Papers of the journal have been included in Engineering Information (EI) since 1997. The journal became the official journal of the World Association for Sedimentation and Erosion Research (WASER) in 2004. According to the agreement achieved between IRTCES and Elsevier in 2007, the journal has been available to a global audience electronically via the premier online platform ScienceDirect since 2008 . 

 “Web of Science is regarded as the premier choice in the industry because we focus on the quality of the journals we select -- not quantity of journals indexed,” said Jim Testa, senior director, editorial development and publisher relations at Thomson Reuters. “By expanding the scope of the regional journal selection process, coverage of material that previously was only available on a limited basis through a few international journals is now accessible in far greater depth to the entire Web of Science community. The addition of these first 700 journals will provide meaningful insight to scientific issues that are unique to particular regions throughout the world.”

All journals added to the Web of Science go through a rigorous selection process. To meet stringent criteria for selection, regional journals must be published on time, have English-language bibliographic information (title, abstract, keywords), and cited references must be in the Roman alphabet. The added journals cover the subject areas of Arts and Humanities, Agriculture Biology & Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Engineering, Computing & Technology, Life Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Science. (LIU Cheng, IRTCES)