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Can Microsoft Academic help to assess the citation impact of academic books?

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  • Kousha, Kayvan
  • Thelwall, Mike

Abstract

Despite recent evidence that Microsoft Academic is an extensive source of citation counts for journal articles, it is not known if the same is true for academic books. This paper fills this gap by comparing citations to 16,463 books from 2013 to 2016 in the Book Citation Index (BKCI) against automatically extracted citations from Microsoft Academic and Google Books in 17 fields. About 60% of the BKCI books had records in Microsoft Academic, varying by year and field. Citation counts from Microsoft Academic were 1.5 to 3.6 times higher than from BKCI in nine subject areas across all years for books indexed by both. Microsoft Academic found more citations than BKCI because it indexes more scholarly publications and combines citations to different editions and chapters. In contrast, BKCI only found more citations than Microsoft Academic for books in three fields from 2013-2014. Microsoft Academic also found more citations than Google Books in six fields for all years. Thus, Microsoft Academic may be a useful source for the impact assessment of books when comprehensive coverage is not essential.

Suggested Citation

  • Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike, 2018. "Can Microsoft Academic help to assess the citation impact of academic books?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 972-984.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:12:y:2018:i:3:p:972-984
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2018.08.003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Yongjun Zhu & Erjia Yan & Silvio Peroni & Chao Che, 2020. "Nine million book items and eleven million citations: a study of book-based scholarly communication using OpenCitations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 1097-1112, February.
    3. Yihui Lan & Kenneth W Clements & Zong Ken Chai, 2022. "Australian PhDs in Economics and Finance: Professional Activities, Productivity and Prospects," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-04, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    4. Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh & A. Noorhidawati & A. Abrizah, 2019. "What can Bookmetrix tell us about the impact of Springer Nature’s books," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 521-536, October.
    5. Zhou, Qingqing & Zhang, Chengzhi, 2021. "Impacts towards a comprehensive assessment of the book impact by integrating multiple evaluation sources," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    6. Raminta Pranckutė, 2021. "Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-59, March.
    7. Siluo Yang & Xin Xing & Fan Qi & Maria Cláudia Cabrini Grácio, 2021. "Comparison of academic book impact from a disciplinary perspective: an analysis of citations and altmetric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1101-1123, February.
    8. Maja Jokić & Andrea Mervar & Stjepan Mateljan, 2019. "Comparative analysis of book citations in social science journals by Central and Eastern European authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1005-1029, September.
    9. Alberto Martín-Martín & Mike Thelwall & Enrique Orduna-Malea & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2021. "Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus, Dimensions, Web of Science, and OpenCitations’ COCI: a multidisciplinary comparison of coverage via citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 871-906, January.

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