STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of CiteAlert, a new free automated service to notify authors when their articles are cited in an Elsevier journal.
CiteAlert was piloted one year ago, and after carrying out extensive research and user testing, this new user-friendly service is now in use. It automatically notifies authors by e-mail soon after their work is referenced in a newly published article in an Elsevier journal. Authors are eligible to receive CiteAlert notifications if their article has been indexed by Scopus, the largest citation database of research literature.
Weekly CiteAlert notifications are sent to authors of cited articles. Notifications include single cited articles or articles which have been highly cited. Some very popular articles are cited up to 50 times a week. Cited authors benefit as their research is recognised by others in their area of research. In retrospect, focus is given to the citing author and their written article. Self-citations are not included.
During the pilot, 50 percent of the citing authors indicated that the research described in the citing article was new to them and relevant in their research. Since its launch, reactions received from authors have been positive.
