Search results

Many professional searchers and end‐users do not use the controlled vocabulary terms when formulating their queries, despite there being software solutions in various online information retrieval services to guide users to the most appropriate terms. Two search software packages (KnowledgeFinder and PubMed) have been developed to allow users natural language access to their queries. These are discussed and evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss dubious hit counts in search results.

Uses not only traditional databases and search engines but also unique citation databases to gain informative hit figures.

Searches are finding materials that are clearly not scholarly materials.

Shows the importance of a more defined search, thus less distortion of counts.

The CDROM industry is surrounded by hype. Many believe that it will be the panacea for information storage and delivery. Others predict that it will disappear as online systems and services become increasingly prevalent. The most‐likely scenario — at least for the rest of the century — is peaceful co‐existence and some convergence of the two technologies. CDROM technology and applications will strive for years to come. This keynote address reviews the most current and the likely future developments in the areas of CDROM database contents, software, hardware and marketing.

To identify the pros and the cons of Google Scholar.

Chronicles the recent history of the Google Scholar search engine from its inception in November 2004 and critiques it with regard to its merits and demerits.

Feels that there are massive content omissions presently but that, with future changes in its structure, Google Scholar will become an excellent free tool for scholarly information discovery and retrieval.

Presents a useful analysis for potential users of the Google Scholar site.

This article describes the wide variety of installation standards, conventions and procedures currently maintained by the publishers of CD‐ROMs, and the problems this can cause for the user. It is designed to offer a guide through the pitfalls of CD‐ROM installation, and lists hardware and software requirements for users of IBM PCs and compatibles. It is based on the experience of the author who carried out a survey of CD‐ROMs for the University of Hawaii.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the journal impact rankings of the open access SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) database and the subscription‐based Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

The paper looks at the SJR database which offers essential scientometric information for more than 17,000 scholarly and professional journals based on data licensed from Elsevier's Scopus database and compares this with the JCR database.

The open access SJR database offers very informative new insights to complement those that have been provided by the JCR for more than three decades by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and its successor, the Thomson (later Thomson‐Reuters) company. Especially valuable are its features of weighting the citations received based on the prestige of the citing journals, the (partial) exclusion of journal self‐citations, and the broader base of source journals. They provide new opportunities to analyse and understand their effects on the ranking of journals.

The paper provides useful information on the open access SJR and JCR databases and their effects on the ranking of journals.

Seven years after the release of Google Scholar in 2004, it was enhanced by a new module, the Google Scholar Author Citation Tracker (GSACT), currently a small subset of the complete Google Scholar (GS) database. The aim of this paper is to focus on this enhancement.

The paper discusses the Google Scholar Author Citation Tracker, its features, potential benefits and problems.

GSACT allows registered users to create and edit their scientific profiles and some bibliometric indicators, such as the h‐index, total citation counts, and the i10 index. These metrics are provided for the entire academic career of authors and for the most recent five‐year period. The new module also offers some long overdue essential options, such as sorting result lists of the documents by their publication year, title, and the citations received

The paper shows that, at present, GSACT may be too little, too late. However, with an extension of the current clean‐up project it could possibly become a really scholarly resource in the long run.

The purpose of this paper is to review the software and content features of the Google Scholar Metrics (GSM) service launched in April 2012.

The paper reviews GSM, examining the software, browsing, searching and sorting functions, citation matching and content.

The paper reveals that the service can offer a better alternative than the traditional Google Scholar service to discover and judge the standing of journals through the prism of their citedness. GSM could become a potentially useful complementary resource primarily by virtue of its brand recognition, and the convenience of not requiring the installation of additional software, but currently its bibliometric indicators are often inappropriate for decision making in matters of tenure, promotion, grants and accreditation.

The paper provides a good understanding of the GSM service.

The purpose of this paper, the fourth in a series, is to discuss the pros and cons of the h‐index in the Web of Science (WoS).

The paper looks at the content and software advantages and disadvantages of WoS from the perspective of calculating the h‐index as a single measure of published research output and influence at the individual researcher level.

The paper finds that there are notable similarities and differences between WoS and Scopus, and that any WoS edition has a unique and important feature. As opposed to other cited reference enhanced databases, WoS always includes all the cited references for every record created, irrespective of the publication year.

The paper provides insights into the advantages and disadvantages of WoS from the perspective of calculating the h‐index.