Departments

Departments in InCites

As of March 2024, Department level data is available for benchmarking and analysis in InCites. The addition of department level data to InCites allows users to identify their institution's strengths by benchmarking against peers, define department-specific strategies and collaborations, and recruit talent that complements their research programs.

Curated Hierarchical Organization Data

Web of Science expanded organization unification depth to include ‘departments’ for author affiliations in August 2023. To do this Web of Science algorithmically mapped department data indexed in the author affiliations to standardized and unified forms of the department name and included existing organization hierarchies that may not be included in the article’s metadata. With the initial release, ~8500 main/parent organizations resolved to ~73,000 lower-level organizations. As of March 2024, approximately 5,200 of those parent organizations have departments with associated documents. Forty-two percent of those have more than 20% coverage of WoS documents associated with Departments. Department unification will continue to be expanded for more organizations and departments in future releases.

Learn more about the department unification process here.

Submitting an Update or Correction to Departments

To submit corrections to the department data please follow the process outlined below.

Department Updates Supported

1. Adding missing schools or departments​
2. Removing incorrect schools or departments​
3. Removing records where a school or department was incorrectly linked to a Web of Science record
4. Adding records where a school or department did not link to a Web of Science record
5. Name changes to existing schools/departments

How to submit feedback?

The Unification Team and the Organization Master team will be collaborating to manage and implement feedback. They can receive department feedback by email at: [e-mail].

Once the request is received, the team will evaluate the request and work to implement the applicable changes. The processing time is dependent on the scope of the request, however an estimated timeline is shared below. Customers are notified when the work is complete with details of when they can expect to see the changes in Web of Science and InCites.

S.No	Type of Request	Estimated Turnaround Time per Request for WoS
1	Unification of departments of an Academic organization for the first time	6 to 10 Business Days
2	Addition of a new department (to an Academic organization with existing unified departments) and unifying it to Web of Science records	6 to 8 Business Days
3	Removal of an existing department incorrectly unified to Web of Science records	4 Business Days
4	Adding existing department that were missed to be unified to Web of Science records	6 to 8 Business Days
5	Increasing unification of an existing department to Web of Science records	6 to 8 Business Days
6	Name change to an existing school/department	4 Business Days

NOTE : It's important to note that these timeframes are general estimates and may be subject to variation based on the size and complexity of specific requests. Additionally, during periods of increased demand, timelines may be adjusted to ensure the continued quality and efficiency of our services. The timing of the updates for InCites depends on the completion in WoS and the InCites production schedule which is typically the sequential release.

Customers can request their organization department hierarchy at any time. An excel export of the current department hierarchy will be provided and the customer can add feedback within the excel spreadsheet and submit it back to the team via the data corrections form or the [e-mail] inbox for review.

Department Level Analysis

To begin a department level analysis, select Departments from the Analyze menu.

The Department search will be automatically filtered to ‘Organization Type: Academic’ and ‘Schema: Web of Science’. Department level data is available only for Academic Organizations.

Before beginning an analysis, first select an Organization(s) under the Organization/Department Name filter. Users can select up to 100 organizations.

After selecting an Organization(s), click +View Departments. A new window will open showing all unified departments for the selected organization(s).

Select the Departments to be included in the analysis.

• Search for Departments using the search bar at the top of the search box. Matching Departments will be shown and highlighted.
• Select the box next to any departments you wish to add to your analysis.
• To run a new search after adding a department, click the clear (x) button at the end of the search field. This will return you to the department list so that you can run a new search.

Notes on the search: You must enter at least 3 characters for the search to be activated. The search results will return up to 100 departments.

The checkbox next to a Department will be greyed out and you will be unable to select it if no documents are linked to that department.

To select multiple departments or all departments under a specific unit, it is necessary to manually select each. Selecting a unit will not automatically select every department beneath it.

After selecting a Department(s), apply additional filters or add desired indicators.

Departments with Multiple Parent Organizations

There are several departments that belong to multiple parent organizations. The Broad Institute, for example, belongs to both Harvard University and MIT. When a department belongs to multiple parent organizations, it will be shown in the table view for only a single parent organization. The parent organization shown will be the first that was selected.

In this example, the Broad Institute and its affiliated units appear twice because it is associated with two parent organizations included in the analysis - Harvard University and MIT.

In the table view, Broad Institute and its affiliated units appear only once for a single parent organization (Harvard University) even though all 6 search results were selected.

Planned Future Development

The March release of Department data in InCites is the first release with several planned enhancements to follow in 2024. Additional features to be released include:

• Collaboration with Departments filter
• Filter Chips
• Refocus
• Baselines
• Additional metrics
• Additional data visualizations
• Department Report