Web of Science vs. Google Scholar

Transcription

1 Web of Science vs. Google Scholar Compare and Contrast Jason Broughton Marsha Hawkins Kristin Snyder

2 Web of Science vs. Google Scholar Jason Broughton Brief description of both systems Database sizes and contents, dates and subject coverage Comparison of the search results Marsha Hawkins, Oral Presentation Coordinator Access points, search fields, controlled vocabulary Positives and negatives of Discussion and reflection Kristin Snyder, Written Paper Coordinator Document types indexed, full-text available, geographic coverage, search limits and preferences Useful searching tips Positives and negatives of Google Scholar

3 Brief Description Jason Broughton Produced and maintained by Thomson Reuters, a USA company. An online subscription-based citation indexing service and is currently considered by researchers as one of the most well established citation resources (Norris & Oppenheim, 2001, p. 141). Used by academic institutions, commercial organizations, and the general public. Covers: full text articles, reviews, editorials, chronologies, abstracts, technical papers, and proceedings in journals and book-based forms from worldwide conferences, colloquia, workshops and conventions. Created the impact factor for reviewing citation frequencies. This factor is useful in evaluating, ranking, categorizing and comparing journals (Balaban, 2012). Google Scholar Google Scholar is produced and maintained by Google. Released in 2004 and indexes the full text of scholarly works in many formats and disciplines. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, nonpeer reviewed journals, abstracts, and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other websites (Google, 2013). Being a search engine, gives the impression that it is possible to search for everything in one place. Users can remain up-to-date on recent developments in any area of research, track citations, and locate the complete document through a library or on the web. Advertising slogan is - Stand on the shoulders of giants."

4 Database Sizes and Contents Jason Broughton Areas recognized: Science, Social Science, Arts, Humanities, Book Citation, Conference Proceedings, and Chemicus. Indexing coverage starts from the year 1900 up to the present. Covers 12,000 journals in all subject areas. Over 54 million records across seven online citation databases. The largest citation database available to users. The seven citation databases are: Conference Proceedings Citation Index Science Citation Index Expanded Social Sciences Citation Index Arts & Humanities Citation Index Index Chemicus Book Citation Index Current Chemical Reactions Does not automatically grant access to subscription-based sites Does not provide an open list of sources that it uses in it s criteria in making an identification of scholarly publications. There is no defined portal or area to find a title list or identification of journal titles within the online web search entity. This may not mean there is not a list, but just one that the general public cannot review.

5 Dates and Subject Coverage Jason Broughton ( Fact Sheet, n.d.) Dates Covered Subject Coverage 1900 to the present Updated Frequency Rates Citation Index Conference Proceedings Citation Index to present, over 148,000 conference titles in the Sciences and Social Sciences Science Citation Index Expanded 1900 to present, over 85,000 journals Social Sciences Citation Index 1900 to present, over 3000 social science journals Arts & Humanities Citation Index 1975 to present, over 1700 arts and humanities journals Index Chemicus 1993 to present, over 2.6 million compounds Book Citation Index 2005 to present, over 30,000 editorially selected books. Current Chemical Reactions 1986 to present, INPI archives from 1840 to 1985 and contains over 1 million reactions Weekly Impact factor and h-index Google Scholar (Google Scholar, n.d.) Whatever is placed onto the internet and the WWW Legal documents Patents Articles Not available for review h-index

6 Access Points, Search Fields, Controlled Vocabulary Marsha Hawkins Research Area is Advanced Search Field characterized by five general topics and assists the user in quickly identifying the subject term in which he/she is seeking. Searches must use commands under Field Tags Searchers can also limit searches by years, language, and type of material such as books, articles, reviews, scripts, poetry, etc. Topics include: Arts Humanities, Life Sciences Biomedicine, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, and Technology features a limited controlled vocabulary through limited index terms. Further explanation of index terms for the Category access point is provided as the user clicks on the hyperlinked term from the advanced search and is guided to the category page. Scope notes provide further detail to the meaning and scope of each term.

7 Access Points, Search Fields, Controlled Vocabulary Marsha Hawkins Users can search for authors, titles, or part of titles and keywords, names of journals, and dates are also access points in Google Scholar. Instead of using Boolean operators, Google s Advanced Search uses natural language in its search fields. Google Scholar Users are able to search for terms using these fields in two locations of the articles: Title or full text. Users can also search by author, name of journal, and/or a date range

8 Search Limits and Preferences Kristin Snyder Search limits and preferences for both systems showed some similarities, with providing more options overall to limit the search. Categories (more specific subjects such as sports sciences and nutrition dietetics document types research areas authors group authors editors source titles book series titles publication years organizations-enhanced funding agencies languages countries/territories language citation databases Google Scholar document types publication dates language journal titles authors results per page library access links

9 Document Types Indexed, Full- Text Available, & Geographic Coverage Kristin Snyder Google Scholar Document Type Articles & Reviews Articles Full-Text Availability One full-text article; option to find full-text through academic library Abstracts freely available for most, full-text may require a subscription Geographic Coverage Australia, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey None specified, Canada, England, Germany, and Greece found within the first 20 search results

10 Search Results Jason Broughton Search Topic: Dietary supplements for elite athletes Limited to Journal articles and reviews; Publication dates: last 7 years Google Scholar Search Strategy: 11 Results Search Strategy: 25 results #7 AND #4 AND #2 Databases=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI Timespan= Exact phrase: dietary supplements At least one of the words: elite athletes In the title Years: #2: (SU=sport sciences) AND Language=(English) AND Document Types=(Article) Databases=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI Timespan=All years #4: (TS="elite athlet* ) (TS="dietary supplement*") Heikkinen, A. (2011). Dietary supplementation habits and perceptions of supplement use among elite Finnish athletes. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 21 (4), Maughan, R. J., Depiesse, F., & Geyer, H. (2007). The use of dietary supplements by athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25(S1), S103-S113. Lazic, J., Dikic, N., Radivojevic, N., Mazic, S., Radovanovic, D., Lazic, J.S., Dikic, N., Radivojevic, N., Mazic, S., Radovanovic, N., Mitrovic, N.,... & Suzic, S. (2011). Dietary supplements and medications in elite sport polypharmacy or real Lazic, M., Zivanic, S., & Suzie, S. (2011). Dietary Note same need?. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science supplements and medications in elite sport citation insports, 21(2), polypharmacy or real need?. Scandinavian Journal of Diehl, K., Thiel, A., Mayer, J., Schnell, A., & Schneider, S. Medicine & Science in Sports, 21(2), (2012). Elite adolescent athletes' use of dietary Dascombe, B.J., Karunaratna, M., Cartoon, J., Fergie, B., & supplements: characteristics, opinions, and sources of supply and information. International Journal of Sport Goodman, C. (2010). Nutritional supplementation habits Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 22(3), and perceptions of elite athletes within a state-base sporting institute. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 13(2),

11 Search Tips Kristin Snyder Searchers can use 6,000 terms for a search. System assumes an AND between words, so if you want to search a concept with that is defined by multiple terms, use quotation marks or the Boolean operator NEAR/x (x being the number of words in relation to each other) Users can view search results date, times cited (highest to lowest, etc.), record views, relevance, source title (A to Z), or conference title. Capitalization does not matter in search field. Case does not matter for Boolean operators. OR and or are read the same. Proximity operators are NEAR/x (x being the number of words). Can only use the Boolean operator, SAME in address field. If searching for an exact phrase, do not use $ as a truncation within the quotes because the search will not retrieve anything. Apostrophes are considered space, not letters. For example, Marsha s is read as Marshas. Google Scholar Search results are sorted by relevance, not date. Users must select sort by date in the left-hand side of the result page. Users can have new results ed to them occasionally. Not all of the results are provided in full text for free. There is a library link for access to your local library. Since Google Scholar does not utilize a Thesaurus for controlled vocabulary, users may need to seek other terms elsewhere. (Google Scholar suggests Wikipedia) To discover more sources, Google Scholar suggests that users refer to the References of the article for more suggestions for sources. To search an author, use initials, not full first names since many articles do not cite the full first name of an author.

12 Positives and Negatives of Web of Science Marsha Hawkins Positives of Users can easily see search history without signing in. More access points than Google Scholar. Boolean operators provide searchers the opportunity to combine concepts easily and effectively. Negatives of Features a limited controlled vocabulary. However, its limited index terms are useful in identifying narrower subjects, which help to improve precision Requires the user to scroll down the long list of subjects/terms in the few indices and does not allow the searcher to click on the term and automatically insert it into the search field.

13 Positives and Negatives of Google Scholar Kristin Snyder Positives of Google Scholar It s free. Simple interface and accessibility. Negatives of Google Scholar Without creating an account, there is no way to view search history or build upon a previous search. Returned searches include questionable sources since there is no human evaluation of journals, just robots and algorithms. Search boxes and access points are limited, making it difficult to search multiple concepts at once. The Search Tips suggests using other sources such as Wikipedia to identify other terms that your subject might appear under. Google Scholar should only be used as a complement to searching a subject-area database (New South Wales Ministry of Health, 2012).

14 Discussion and Reflection Marsha Hawkins VS Content is key. Know your source (Thomson Reuters, n.d.) Google Scholar Organize the world s information and make it universally accessible and useful (by using robots and algorithms) (Google, n.d.).

15 Discussion and Reflection Marsha Hawkins Is Google really that bad? Let s think about Google s mission again. Ranganathan s Five Laws of Library Science Books are for use Every reader his book Every book its reader Save the time of the reader The library is a growing organism Five Laws With Google s Mission Applied Information is for use Every researcher his information Every information its user Save the time of the researcher Internet is a growing organism and Google Scholar make a great couple. Our recommendation is to use them in tandem for the most thorough search.

16 Q&A Jason Broughton Marsha Hawkins Kristin Snyder Robot image: By Mikael Nordin, Södertälje - Sweden (Own work) [GFDL ( CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-2.5 ( via Wikimedia Commons Reearchers By Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons Wedding Photo See page for author [Public domain or CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons