An Investigation of Information Usefulness of Google Scholar in Comparison with Web of Science

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Google Scholar (GS) can substitute Web of Science (WoS) for those who don't have access to the subscription-based indexing service and if users feel GS is useful for scholarly information. To achieve the research purpose, the study evaluates both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the two databases. The major results through statistical analysis show that GS indexes much more records and citations for LIS journals than WoS(p < .01), but users' feedback about GS is not better than those about WoS. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether GS can substitute WoS for those who don't have access to the subscription-based indexing service and if users feel GS is useful for scholarly information.To achieve the research purpose, the study will evaluate both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the two databases with the following research questions. RQ 1. Comparison of the quantitative measuresbetween WoS and GS.

Google Scholar Citation metrics of Pakistani LIS scholars: an overview

“…First, it offers quite a wide breadth of coverage in terms of content types (Delgado López-Cózar et al , 2018). Second, Kousha and Thelwall (2017, p. 763) have noted its usefulness for “scholarly publications in languages and countries that are not well covered by WoS or Scopus”. Third, creating a profile is free (Kim, 2014).…”

“…Second, Kousha and Thelwall (2017, p. 763) have noted its usefulness for "scholarly publications in languages and countries that are not well covered by WoS or Scopus". Third, creating a profile is free (Kim, 2014). Harzing and Van der Wal (2008, p. 61) refer to the "democratization" of citation analysis for authors without access to subscription-based citation indices.…”

“…Mingers and Meyer (2017) agree with the issue of limited coverage but note that, unlike WoS and Scopus, Google Scholar lacks any normalization of data across disciplines. For their part, Kousha and Thelwall (2017, p. 763) make the important point that Google Scholar may have a key role to play in the assessment of scholarly publications in those countries and languages that are not well covered currently by either WoS or Scopus. In addition, Thelwall and Kousha (2017, pp.…”

“…Orduna-Malea et al (2016, p. 1), for example, have referred to the creation of such profiles as “a new addictive game for researchers”. Several studies have highlighted ways in which content can be manipulated in such a way as to inflate citation metrics (Karanatsiou et al , 2017; Kousha and Thelwall, 2017; Oravec, 2017; Doğan et al , 2016; Hammarfelt et al , 2016; Thelwall and Kousha, 2015; Bornmann, 2014; Delgado López‐Cózar et al , 2014; Jacsó, 2012).…”