IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v74y2008i2d10.1007_s11192-008-0217-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines

Author

Listed:
  • Kayvan Kousha

    (University of Wolverhampton
    University of Tehran)

  • Mike Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

Abstract

For practical reasons, bibliographic databases can only contain a subset of the scientific literature. The ISI citation databases are designed to cover the highest impact scientific research journals as well as a few other sources chosen by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Google Scholar also contains citation information, but includes a less quality controlled collection of publications from different types of web documents. We define Google Scholar unique citations as those retrieved by Google Scholar which are not in the ISI database. We took a sample of 882 articles from 39 open access ISI-indexed journals in 2001 from biology, chemistry, physics and computing and classified the type, language, publication year and accessibility of the Google Scholar unique citing sources. The majority of Google Scholar unique citations (70%) were from full-text sources and there were large disciplinary differences between types of citing documents, suggesting that a wide range of non-ISI citing sources, especially from non-journal documents, are accessible by Google Scholar. This might be considered to be an advantage of Google Scholar, since it could be useful for citation tracking in a wider range of open access scholarly documents and to give a broader type of citation impact. An important corollary from our study is that Google Scholar’s wider coverage of Open Access (OA) web documents is likely to give a boost to the impact of OA research and the OA movement.

Suggested Citation

  • Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 273-294, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:74:y:2008:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-008-0217-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-008-0217-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-008-0217-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-008-0217-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liwen Vaughan & Debora Shaw, 2005. "Web citation data for impact assessment: A comparison of four science disciplines," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 56(10), pages 1075-1087, August.
    2. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2006. "Motivations for URL citations to open access library and information science articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(3), pages 501-517, September.
    3. Liwen Vaughan & Mike Thelwall, 2003. "Scholarly use of the Web: What are the key inducers of links to journal Web sites?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(1), pages 29-38, January.
    4. Liwen Vaughan & Debora Shaw, 2003. "Bibliographic and Web citations: What is the difference?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(14), pages 1313-1322, December.
    5. Dangzhi Zhao & Elisabeth Logan, 2002. "Citation analysis using scientific publications on the Web as data source: A case study in the XML research area," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 54(3), pages 449-472, July.
    6. Hak Joon Kim, 2000. "Motivations for hyperlinking in scholarly electronic articles: A qualitative study," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 51(10), pages 887-899.
    7. Michael H. MacRoberts & Barbara R. MacRoberts, 1989. "Problems of citation analysis: A critical review," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 40(5), pages 342-349, September.
    8. Mike Thelwall, 2006. "Interpreting social science link analysis research: A theoretical framework," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(1), pages 60-68, January.
    9. Paul Wouters & Repke de Vries, 2004. "Formally citing the Web," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 55(14), pages 1250-1260, December.
    10. Rob Kling & Geoffrey McKim, 1999. "Scholarly communication and the continuum of electronic publishing," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 50(10), pages 890-906.
    11. Michael J. Kurtz & Guenther Eichhorn & Alberto Accomazzi & Carolyn Grant & Markus Demleitner & Stephen S. Murray, 2005. "Worldwide use and impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System digital library," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 56(1), pages 36-45, January.
    12. Cecelia Brown, 2003. "The role of electronic preprints in chemical communication: Analysis of citation, usage, and acceptance in the journal literature," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(5), pages 362-371, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    2. Mike Thelwall, 2012. "Journal impact evaluation: a webometric perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 429-441, August.
    3. Amalia Mas-Bleda & Mike Thelwall, 2016. "Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2007-2030, December.
    4. Pardeep Sud & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Linked title mentions: a new automated link search candidate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1831-1849, December.
    5. Liwen Vaughan & Debora Shaw, 2008. "A new look at evidence of scholarly citation in citation indexes and from web sources," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 317-330, February.
    6. Hajar Sotudeh & Abbas Horri, 2009. "Countries positioning in open access journals system: An investigation of citation distribution patterns," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(1), pages 7-31, October.
    7. Enrique Orduña-Malea, 2021. "Dot-science top level domain: Academic websites or dumpsites?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3565-3591, April.
    8. Fairclough, Ruth & Thelwall, Mike, 2015. "National research impact indicators from Mendeley readers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 845-859.
    9. Li Tang & John P. Walsh, 2010. "Bibliometric fingerprints: name disambiguation based on approximate structure equivalence of cognitive maps," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 763-784, September.
    10. George Masterton & Erik J. Olsson & Staffan Angere, 2016. "Linking as voting: how the Condorcet jury theorem in political science is relevant to webometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 945-966, March.
    11. Young Mee Chung & So Young Yu & Yong Kwang Kim & Su Yeon Kim, 2009. "Characteristics and link structure of a national scholarly Web space: The case of South Korea," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(3), pages 595-612, September.
    12. Font-Julián, Cristina I & Ontalba-Ruipérez, José-Antonio & Orduña-Malea, Enrique & Thelwall, Mike, 2022. "Which types of online resource support US patent claims?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    13. José-Antonio Ontalba-Ruipérez & Enrique Orduna-Malea & Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, 2016. "Identifying institutional relationships in a geographically distributed public health system using interlinking and co-authorship methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1167-1191, March.
    14. Zohreh Zahedi & Rodrigo Costas & Paul Wouters, 2014. "How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of ‘alternative metrics’ in scientific publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1491-1513, November.
    15. Amalia Más-Bleda & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2013. "Can a personal website be useful as an information source to assess individual scientists? The case of European highly cited researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 51-67, July.
    16. McAleer, M.J. & Oláh, J. & Popp, J., 2018. "Pros and Cons of the Impact Factor in a Rapidly Changing Digital World," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI2018-11, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    17. Enrique Orduña-Malea & Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo & José-Antonio Ontalba-Ruipérez & Ferrán Catalá-López, 2023. "Evaluating the online impact of reporting guidelines for randomised trial reports and protocols: a cross-sectional web-based data analysis of CONSORT and SPIRIT initiatives," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 407-440, January.
    18. Chuanfu Chen & Kai Sun & Gang Wu & Qiong Tang & Jian Qin & Kuei Chiu & Yushuang Fu & Xiaofang Wang & Jing Liu, 2009. "The impact of internet resources on scholarly communication: A citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(2), pages 459-474, November.
    19. Amalia Mas-Bleda & Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2014. "Do highly cited researchers successfully use the social web?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 337-356, October.
    20. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike & Rezaie, Somayeh, 2010. "Using the Web for research evaluation: The Integrated Online Impact indicator," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 124-135.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:74:y:2008:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-008-0217-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.