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ResearchGate versus Google Scholar: Which finds more early citations?

Author

Listed:
  • Mike Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

  • Kayvan Kousha

    (University of Wolverhampton)

Abstract

ResearchGate has launched its own citation index by extracting citations from documents uploaded to the site and reporting citation counts on article profile pages. Since authors may upload preprints to ResearchGate, it may use these to provide early impact evidence for new papers. This article assesses the whether the number of citations found for recent articles is comparable to other citation indexes using 2675 recently-published library and information science articles. The results show that in March 2017, ResearchGate found less citations than did Google Scholar but more than both Web of Science and Scopus. This held true for the dataset overall and for the six largest journals in it. ResearchGate correlated most strongly with Google Scholar citations, suggesting that ResearchGate is not predominantly tapping a fundamentally different source of data than Google Scholar. Nevertheless, preprint sharing in ResearchGate is substantial enough for authors to take seriously.

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2017. "ResearchGate versus Google Scholar: Which finds more early citations?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(2), pages 1125-1131, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:112:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2400-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2400-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    12. Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2015. "ResearchGate: Disseminating, communicating, and measuring Scholarship?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(5), pages 876-889, May.
    13. Thelwall, Mike, 2016. "Citation count distributions for large monodisciplinary journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 863-874.
    14. Thelwall, Mike, 2017. "Three practical field normalised alternative indicator formulae for research evaluation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 128-151.
    15. Anne‐Wil Harzing & Ron van der Wal, 2009. "A Google Scholar h‐index for journals: An alternative metric to measure journal impact in economics and business," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(1), pages 41-46, January.
    16. Derek De Solla Price, 1976. "A general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 27(5), pages 292-306, September.
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    3. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado & Mike Thelwall, 2021. "Exploring WorldCat identities as an altmetric information source: a library catalog analysis experiment in the field of Scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1725-1743, February.
    4. Yan, Weiwei & Zhang, Yin, 2018. "Research universities on the ResearchGate social networking site: An examination of institutional differences, research activity level, and social networks formed," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 385-400.
    5. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike & Abdoli, Mahshid, 2018. "Can Microsoft Academic assess the early citation impact of in-press articles? A multi-discipline exploratory analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 287-298.
    6. Jakub Kubiczek & Wojciech Derej & Angelika Kantor, 2022. "Scientific Achievements of Economic Academic Workers in Poland: Bibliometric Analysis," Ekonomista, Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne, issue 1, pages 67-93.
    7. Zhiqi Wang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Yue Chen, 2020. "The impact of preprints in Library and Information Science: an analysis of citations, usage and social attention indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1403-1423, November.
    8. Shannon Mason & Yusuke Sakurai, 2021. "A ResearchGate-way to an international academic community?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1149-1171, February.
    9. Nicola Cucari & Ilaria Tutore & Raffaella Montera & Sofia Profita, 2023. "A bibliometric performance analysis of publication productivity in the corporate social responsibility field: Outcomes of SciVal analytics," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Vivek Kumar Singh & Satya Swarup Srichandan & Hiran H. Lathabai, 2022. "ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1515-1542, March.
    11. Regina Negri Pagani & Bruno Pedroso & Celso Bilynkievycz Santos & Claudia Tania Picinin & João Luiz Kovaleski, 2023. "Methodi Ordinatio 2.0: revisited under statistical estimation, and presenting FInder and RankIn," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4563-4602, October.
    12. Lepori, Benedetto & Thelwall, Michael & Hoorani, Bareerah Hafeez, 2018. "Which US and European Higher Education Institutions are visible in ResearchGate and what affects their RG score?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 806-818.

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