A Reflection on the Applicability of Google Scholar as a Tool for Comprehensive Retrieval in Bibliometric Research and Systematic Reviews

Authors : Mojgan Houshyar, Hajar Sotudeh

Google Scholar has recently attracted great attentions as an open access multidisciplinary citation database, and a tool for retrieving scientific works for scientometricians and researchers.

The present research intended to highlight the limitations brought about by efficiency policies of the search engine and its impact on the results available to users. To do so, it examined the accessibility of the retrieval results, through conducting 54 searches in this database.

The results showed that the estimation of the results on the top of the first page returned by Google Scholar did not match that of the accessible results. Therefore, these statistics could not be accounted for to precisely determine the number of documents on a topic.

Moreover, the results showed that although the subjects selected for the searches were very specific, the number of results for each search was very wide and exceeded the upper limit of 1,000 records authorized in Google Scholar for display.

By limiting the searches to the title field, the number of the results was dramatically reduced. Since title is one of the most important representations of document contents in scientific and technical fields, this strategy can increase the precision of the results and thus the effectiveness of the retrievals.

The investigation of the accessibility of the search results for the title field also showed that some documents, though scarce in number, were still inaccessible despite the fact that they were within the 1000-record limits.

In addition, in title field search, some rare cases of duplicate records, incompatibilities between queries and documents were observed regarding the language of the documents and exact phrase search.

The lack of automatic truncation in field searches was one of the most important issues necessitating the use of sophisticated search strategies.

URL : A Reflection on the Applicability of Google Scholar as a Tool for Comprehensive Retrieval in Bibliometric Research and Systematic Reviews

Alternative location : https://ijism.ricest.ac.ir/index.php/ijism/article/view/1267

The World’s Approach toward Publishing in Springer and Elsevier’s APC-Funded Open Access Journals

Authors : Hajar Sotudeh, Zahra Ghasempour

Purpose

The present study explored tendencies of the world’s countries—at individual and scientific development levels—toward publishing in APC-funded open access journals.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Using a bibliometric method, it studied OA and NOA articles issued in Springer and Elsevier’s APC journals‎ during 2007–2011. The data were gathered using a wide number of sources including Sherpa/Romeo, Springer Author-mapper, Science Direct, Google, and journals’ websites.

Findings

The Netherlands, Norway, and Poland ranked highest in terms of their OA shares. This can be attributed to the financial resources allocated to publication in general, and publishing in OA journals in particular, by the countries.

All developed countries and a large number of scientifically lagging and developing nations were found to publish OA articles in the APC journals. The OA papers have been exponentially growing across all the countries’ scientific groups annually.

Although the advanced nations published the lion’s share of the OA-APC papers and exhibited the highest growth, the underdeveloped groups have been displaying high OA growth rates.

Practical Implications

Given the reliance of the APC model on authors’ affluence and motivation, its affordability and sustainability have been challenged.

This communication helps understand how countries at different scientific development and thus wealth levels contribute to the model.

Originality/Value

This is the first study conducted at macro level clarifying countries’ contribution to the APC model—at individual and scientific-development levels—as the ultimate result of the interaction between authors’ willingness, the model affordability, and publishers and funding agencies’ support.

URL : The World’s Approach toward Publishing in Springer and Elsevier’s APC-Funded Open Access Journals

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.2.257