Comments on: Surveying Russell Group University Use of Google Scholar Citations

By: Profiling Staff and Researcher Use of Cloud Services Across Russell Group Universities « UK Web Focus

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:26:19 +0000

[...] at the University of Warwick. Her post included a reference to one of my posts which profiled Russell Group university use of Google Scholar Citations. I am now able to build on Jenny’s work by using some of the survey methodology techniques [...]

By: Google Scholar Citations y la emergencia de nuevos actores en la evaluación de la investigación « Unidad para Apoyar la Investigación

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:18:55 +0000

[...] [8] Surveying Russell Group University Use of Google Scholar Citations. http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/surveying-russell-group-university-use-of-google-scholar-… [...]

By: Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:01:13 +0000

Thanks for the response. In a post on Paradata for Online Surveys I commented on the potential difficulties in reproducing survey findings - I discovered, for example, that there were different numbers of results foe a search for the "University of Bath" and "Bath University" and also differences for other searches with and without quotes. That post concluded that there was a need to document the paradata for the survey.

By: werner muller

werner muller — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:55:54 +0000

My guess is that on the 22 November, the numbers of citations for my entry were closer to 18,000 than to 13,000 (the figure you have in your table for Manchester). I think, most likely your original search had problems and did not pick up all entries for the University of Manchester. The conclusion is that its still
beta and we have to wait and see until we have a decent coverage of most members of UK universities. Only then a survey of the type you presented will make sense.

By: Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:23:34 +0000

Thanks for the comment. The survey was a snapshot of usage which, as mentioned in the post, was carried out on Tuesday 22 November 2011. It is not intended to provide updates on the findings. Note that your results, in any case, are now also out-of-date: the top three results for the University of Manchester are now (on Monday 5 December 2011) 35,739, 19,641 and, for your papers, 18,211.

By: werner muller

werner muller — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:55:58 +0000

Your survey is not correct for the University of Manchester.

The top three are

http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=WgY2gPEAAAAJ&hl=en
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=OCLU-0MAAAAJ&hl=en
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=BIDx4wkAAAAJ

and the values are 19621 18199 16248.

Please correct.

By: Curating Scholar « Tech Lunch

Curating Scholar « Tech Lunch — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:50:34 +0000

[...] to a heads up from Brian Kelly, I’ve been having a look at the latest improvements to Google Scholar, a search engine for [...]

By: Paradata for Online Surveys « UK Web Focus

Paradata for Online Surveys « UK Web Focus — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:31:38 +0000

[...] Surveying Russell Group University Use of Google Scholar Citations [...]

By: Google Scholar Citations and Metadata Quality « UK Web Focus

Google Scholar Citations and Metadata Quality « UK Web Focus — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:27:02 +0000

[...] Surveying Russell Group University Use of Google Scholar Citations [...]

By: Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:28:32 +0000

Thanks for the comment. I'm pleased to see a department being pro-active in use of tools such as Goppogle Scholar Citations. Note related to the suggestion from David on search techniques, I realised that there may be different results for searches for Imperial College and Imperial College London (with and without quotes). Here are the current findings: 80 results for Imperial College, 72 for Imperial College London, 80 for "Imperial College" and 72 for "Imperial College London"

By: Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:12:48 +0000

Good suggestion. Note though that searching for University of Newcastle currently gives me 24 results, a search for "University of Newcastle" gives 13 hits, all from the Australian University. In addition a search for Newcastle University gives 55 results and "Newcastle University" gives 42 results. Which finding is correct?

By: David

David — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:24:37 +0000

You can eliminate some of the problems by putting quotations around the search term. For example: “University of York”

By: Azeem Majeed

Azeem Majeed — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:26:33 +0000

An interesting article. I was able to obtain a Google Scholar Citations page when the service was first launched earlier this year. I already have both an Imperial College personal homepage that describes my academic work and a publications page that list my publications (Imperial College London & Imperial College London publications). These are useful sites but I find the extra functionality in Google Scholar Citations very useful in tracking citations. The ability to view citation metrics is helpful, as are the charts the service can produce. I've now encouraged my colleagues in the Department of Primary Care & Public Health to also sign up for the Google Scholar Citations service.

By: Cameron Neylon

Cameron Neylon — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:26:46 +0000

The answer to the API question is no, and there are no plans to do so. It’s simply not something that is on their roadmap. My personal view is that that means GS will have its breakfast eaten by Microsoft Academic Search once they get down to making it easier to clean up the data. Once that data starts being pull at scale from one main, openly accessible source, that will be the place we go to keep things up to date. ORCID has a shot at it if it can move fast enough but GS seems to have no interest in that space at all, they are exclusively focused on services for individual researchers. MAS seem like they have the clearest shot at it at the moment