Use this guide to help you search Scopus more effectively and to find out how to manage your search results. After reading this introductory page, click each heading in the following row of tabs:
What is Scopus? Scopus provides details of articles and other documents from more than 30,000 academic journals, 1500 book series, 700 conference proceedings and 800 trade publications. All of the journals indexed by Scopus are peer-reviewed.
Subject coverage: Many subject areas are covered including social and policy sciences, architecture, biosciences, chemistry, economics, education, engineering, health, management, mathematics, medicine, physics, physiotherapy, politics, social science, social work and sports science. Scopus is stronger in some areas than others so please check the databases recommended in the Library's webpages for your subject - to find these, click the relevant subject in the right-hand column of the Library Homepage.
Date coverage: Scopus has a strong leaning towards indexing literature from the late 20th century onwards but it also contains records of literature dating back to 1788.
Connecting to Scopus
To connect to Scopus: click either the Scopus link in the Library Catalogue or one of the Scopus links in the Library's 'resources for your subject' webpages (connect to these webpages via the subjects list on the Library Homepage). Here's another link:
Index to journals and conference papers across all subject areas.
Off-campus students and staff: after clicking a Scopus link, you will be asked to enter your University of Bath username and password (unless you are connecting via VPN/UniDesk).
Once you've entered Scopus, a dialog box may appear asking you to sign in to Scopus. If you just want to search for literature, or save individual search results, you don't need to sign in and you can close this dialog box. The 'saving searches & alerts' tab of this guide outlines the benefits of signing in to Scopus.
Checking the availability of an article/document
As with most library databases, Scopus provides abstracts/summaries of articles and other documents. The availability of the full document depends on whether the Library has bought the content, and whilst we provide an extensive collection of literature, there will be some gaps in coverage.
To check the availability of a document referenced in a search result: if you don't see a direct link, click the blue and white 'links' button. This takes you into the Library Catalogue where you will either find a link to the full document or a statement explaining that the content is unavailable.
If the full document isn't available: if you're signed in to the Library Catalogue, you'll see a link inviting you to request a scan of the document from another library. Click this link to complete a request form. There's a good chance that you'll then receive the scan, either the same day or within two working days: further information about the Inter-Library Loan service.
