Package 'rwosstarter'

Title: An R Client to the Web of Science Starter API
Description: A client to the 'Web of Science Starter API' (<https://developer.clarivate.com/apis/wos-starter>) dedicated to retrieve metadata (including times-cited counts) of scientific publications matching search terms. It can be used to run a literature synthesis. Note that this API requires an API Key access (<https://developer.clarivate.com/>).
Authors: Nicolas Casajus [aut, cre, cph] (ORCID: <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5537-5294>)
Maintainer: Nicolas Casajus <[email protected]>
License: GPL (>= 2)
Version: 0.1
Built: 2026-06-02 10:04:47 UTC
Source: https://github.com/FRBCesab/rwosstarter

Help Index

Download references that match a given WOS query

Description

This function sends a query to the Web Of Science Starter API (https://developer.clarivate.com/apis/wos-starter) and returns references that match this query.

To learn how to write a WOS query, users can read the WOS documentation available at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOK/contents.html. A list of WOS field tags is available at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/hs_wos_fieldtags.html.

It's strongly recommended to use the function wos_search before to have an idea on how many records you will download.

Usage

wos_get_records(query, database = "WOS", limit = NULL, sleep = 1)

Arguments

query

a character of length 1. The query to send to the WOS Starter API. Visit the WOS documentation at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOK/contents.html on how to write a WOS query.
database

a character of length 1. One among BCI (BIOSIS Citation Index), BIOABS (Biological Abstracts), BIOSIS (BIOSIS Previews), CCC (Current Contents Connect), DIIDW (Derwent Innovations Index), DRCI (Data Citation Index), MEDLINE (Medline), PPRN (Preprint Citation Index), WOS (Web of Science Core Collection), ZOOREC (Zoological Record), and WOK (all databases). Default is WOS (all databases).
limit

an numeric of length 1. The number of records to retrieve. Default is NULL (all possible records will be retrieved).
sleep

an numeric of length 1. To not stress the WOS STARTER API, a random number between 0 and sleep will be picked to suspend queries.

Value

A data.frame with n rows (where n is the total number of references) and the following 21 variables: uid: the unique identifier of the reference in the Web of Science system; document_type: the document type; title: the title of the reference; authors: the authors of the reference; published_year: the published year; published_month: the published month; source: the title of the source (journal, book, etc.) in which the reference was published; volume: the volume number; issue: the issue number; pages: the pages range in the source; no_article: the article number; supplement_number: the supplement number (if applicable); special_issue: SI in case of a special issue (if applicable); book_editors: the book authors (if applicable); keywords: the authors keywords; doi: the Digital Object Identifier; eissn: the Electronic International Standard Identifier Number; issn: the International Standard Identifier Number; isbn: International Standard Book Number. pmid: PubMed identifier. citations: the number of citations in the database.

Examples

## Not run: 
## Write query to retrieve references of one author ----
query <- "AU=(\"Casajus Nicolas\")"

## Check the number of records ----
wos_search(query)

## Download metadata of records ----
refs <- wos_get_records(query)

## End(Not run)

Retrieve the number of records that match a given WOS query

Description

This function sends a query to the Web Of Science Starter API (https://developer.clarivate.com/apis/wos-starter) and returns the total number of records that match this query.

To learn how to write a WOS query, users can read the WOS documentation available at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOK/contents.html. A list of WOS field tags is available at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/hs_wos_fieldtags.html.

Usage

wos_search(query, database = "WOS")

Arguments

query

a character of length 1. The query to send to the WOS Starter API. Visit the WOS documentation at: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOK/contents.html on how to write a WOS query.
database

a character of length 1. One among BCI (BIOSIS Citation Index), BIOABS (Biological Abstracts), BIOSIS (BIOSIS Previews), CCC (Current Contents Connect), DIIDW (Derwent Innovations Index), DRCI (Data Citation Index), MEDLINE (Medline), PPRN (Preprint Citation Index), WOS (Web of Science Core Collection), ZOOREC (Zoological Record), and WOK (all databases). Default is WOS (all databases).

Value

The total number of records (integer of length 1) that match the query.

Examples

## Not run: 
## Search in TOPIC an exact expression ----
query <- "TS=\"salmo salar\""
wos_search(query)

## Search in TOPIC an exact expression and another term ----
query <- "TS=(\"salmo salar\" AND conservation)"
wos_search(query)

## Search for a specific year ----
query <- "TS=(\"salmo salar\" AND conservation) AND PY=2021"
wos_search(query)

## Search for a time span ----
query <- "TS=(\"salmo salar\" AND conservation) AND PY=2010-2021"
wos_search(query)

## Search for an author ----
query <- "AU=(\"Casajus N\")"
wos_search(query)

## End(Not run)