A comparative analysis of social sciences citation tools

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify the utility of Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar as citation analysis tools for the social sciences. Design/methodology/approach -The 25 most-accessed articles in 163 social sciences journals are searched in three citation databases. Findings -Web of Science has long been the only tool for citation analysis. Scopus and Google Scholar, while still new to the market, are complementary to Web of Science and in some cases can provide a more nuanced view of the importance of scholarly articles in the social sciences. Practical implications -As libraries struggle to provide the best tools to their users, they may wish to consider the freely-available Google Scholar as a substitute or complement to expensive databases such as Web of Science and Scopus. Originality/value -Most analyses of citation databases have focused on the sciences. Because this study examined the social sciences literature, it has expanded on the research available on Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus.

Analysis and Implications of the Impact of MOOC Movement in the Scientific Community: JCR and Scopus (2010-13)

“…El uso comparado de bases de datos es un método utilizado en investigaciones que miden el impacto de un término o tendencia y se suele recurrir a tres bases de datos internacionales: JCR, Scopus y Google Scholar (Jacso, 2005;Levine-Clark & Gil, 2009); aunque recientemente los resultados de Google Scholar han sido seriamente cuestionados (Delgado, Robinson & Torres, 2014) y las entradas recuperadas muchas veces incorporan referencias po co fiables. Por este motivo, la investigación se ha circunscrito a dos de las bases de datos con mayor im pacto y reconocimiento internacional JCR y Scopus (Delgado & Repiso, 2013).…”

Research output on Lavender, 2008–2012

“…They were chosen primarily because of their exhaustive coverage of most reliable and authentic sources, in addition to, representing two leading general indexing and abstracting sources [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Lavandula the scientific name for Lavender, was used as a term to run the searches at both databases.…”

Where you search is what you get: literature mining – Google Scholar versus Web of Science using a data set from a literature search in vegetation science

“…Hightower & Caldwell 2010). This may change in the future, partly as Google steadily increases the cover of its digital library for older volumes, and partly because the free access to GS may attract more users in the future (Levine-Clark & Gil 2009). This may be especially true in countries where WOS is not available to all scientists due to the high subscription cost.…”