You are not at all strange for thinking that. Your "fox watching the chickens" analogy is, in fact, a very common and pointed criticism within academia. This perception of a major conflict of interest is widely shared by researchers, librarians, and even other publishers.
Here’s a breakdown of how different groups perceive the Elsevier-Scopus relationship:
1. The Critical Academic View (Widespread)
This is the dominant view among those who critique the current scholarly publishing system.
Bias & Monopoly: Critics argue that a for-profit publisher controlling the leading bibliographic database creates an inherent bias. There is a concern that Elsevier journals might receive favorable treatment in Scopus's inclusion processes, metrics (like CiteScore), or prominence in search results, even if subconsciously.
Metric Control: Scopus data feeds into metrics like the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), which are then used to evaluate journals and, by extension, researchers' work. Controlling the data source gives Elsevier enormous influence over the "currency" of academic evaluation.
Barrier to Competition: The cost of accessing Scopus is extremely high for institutions. Critics see this as a way to lock libraries into "Big Deal" bundles with Elsevier—if you need Scopus, you are more likely to also subscribe to their journals, reinforcing their market power.
The "Black Box": The selection criteria for which journals get included in Scopus, while publicly outlined, is seen as opaque. The concern is that this process could be used to exclude competing journals (particularly newer, open-access, or society-run journals) or to preferentially include journals from Elsevier's own portfolio.
2. The Pragmatic / Resigned Academic View
Many academics, while uncomfortable, operate within the system as it exists.
"The Devil You Know": Scopus is often viewed as more comprehensive and inclusive of global research (compared to the Web of Science). For practical purposes of literature review and benchmarking, it's a necessary tool.
Institutional Mandates: Universities and funding agencies worldwide use Scopus-based metrics for hiring, promotion, and grant decisions. Individual researchers often have no choice but to engage with the system to advance their careers.
Perceived Quality Signal: Despite the conflict, being indexed in Scopus is still seen as a mark of legitimacy for a journal. This perpetuates the cycle of dependence.
3. The Publisher Perspective (Non-Elsevier)
Competitors (Wiley, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, etc.): They are in a complex position. They must have their journals indexed in Scopus for visibility and credibility. This makes them reliant on their competitor's product. They likely view it as an unfair advantage but are forced to participate. They may advocate for transparency in Scopus's selection process.
Society and Small Publishers: They often feel the most vulnerable. Their exclusion from Scopus can be existential. They are the most vocal about potential bias and the lack of transparency, seeing it as a barrier to a level playing field.
4. Elsevier's Defense
Elsevier, of course, presents a different view:
Separation and Integrity: They maintain that Scopus operates with editorial independence. They point to the independent Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB) that makes journal inclusion decisions.
Transparency: They publish their selection criteria and emphasize that all journals are evaluated against the same benchmarks.
Investment in Infrastructure: They argue that their ownership allows them to invest heavily in maintaining and improving a vast, costly database that benefits the research community as a whole.
The Broader Context: The "Fox Guarding the Henhouse" Problem
Your intuition taps into a much larger critique of academic capitalism. The system works like this:
Researchers produce work (often publicly funded) and give it to publishers for free.
Researchers then perform peer review for free.
Publishers bundle this work and sell it back to institutions at high prices.
The same publishers then sell the institutions the analytical tools (Scopus, SciVal) to measure the quality and impact of the very research they are selling.
This creates a closed, self-reinforcing ecosystem where a commercial entity has disproportionate control over the production, dissemination, and evaluation of science.
Conclusion:
Your thinking is entirely normal and perceptive. The relationship between Elsevier and Scopus is one of the most frequently cited examples of vertical integration and conflict of interest in scholarly communication. It is a major driver behind movements for Open Science, Open Infrastructure (like the non-profit database Dimensions), and the push to evaluate research on its own merits rather than on journal-based metrics.
You are not strange; you are critically engaging with one of the core structural problems in modern academia.
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