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Comparing Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science for Earth Sciences

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Abstract

In order to measure the degree to which Google Scholar can compete with bibliographical databases, search results from this database is compared with Thomson’s ISI WoS (Institute for Scientific Information, Web of Science). For earth science literature 85% of documents indexed by ISI WoS were recalled by Google Scholar. The rank of records displayed in Google Scholar and ISI WoS, is compared by means of Spearman’s footrule. For impact measures the h-index is investigated. Similarities in measures were significant for the two sources.

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Notes

  1. GeoRef (No Date) is produced by the American Geological Institute and provides access to the geoscience literature of the world

  2. Scopus (No Date) is developed by Elsevier and claims to be “the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources”. References go back to 1996.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the programming help I received from Knut Barthel at the Geophysical Institute (University of Bergen), and for fruitful discussions with Hege Folkestad my colleague at the Science Library.

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  1. University Library, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Susanne Mikki

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  1. Susanne Mikki
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Correspondence to Susanne Mikki.

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Mikki, S. Comparing Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science for Earth Sciences. Scientometrics 82, 321–331 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0038-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0038-6

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