Citation Searching

Comparing Web of Science, Google

Scholar and Scopus

Valerie Forrestal, Stevens Institute of Technology

11-12-08
 Citation Databases
Web of Science Scopus Google Scholar

Breadth of 40M records 36M records 500M records

coverage 10,000 titles 16,000 titles Unknown
Journals (240 open Journals (1200 open 30+ document
access) & conference access), Conference types
papers Proceedings, Trade
Publications & book
series

Coverage years A&HCI: 1975-present 1996-present (with Unknown

SCI: 1900-present cited references)
SSCI: 1956-present 1823-present (without
cited references)

Source http://isiwebofknowledge. http://www.info.scopu Meho&Yang

com/currentuser_wokhom s.com/detail/what/
e/cu_productspecs/
Source: Hull, D., Pettifer, S.R., & Kell, D.B. (2008). Defrosting the Digital Library: Bibliographic Tools for the Next
Generation Web. PLoS Computational Biology 4(10): e1000204 doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000204
 Content: Scopus has almost 36 million record and WoS -including backfiles- 40 million.
Scopus includes 16,000 journal titles against almost 10,000 in WoS.
 Coverage: preliminary conclusions:
 Scopus has after 1996 about 30% more, and before that about 10% less coverage than
WoS
 Coverage in biology, environmental science, engineering and computer science very
good in Scopus
 Coverage in health sciences also very good, but doubt over most recent years
 Coverage psych, anthropology, economics and chemistry acceptable, but before 1996
there are several gaps
 Coverage in physics, astronomy, math and sociology less reliable
 Not-so-great coverage philosophy, theology, arts and literature
 Up-to-dateness: there is hardly any difference between WoS-Scopus considering the speed
of updating records
 Citation details: again the difference is rather small, there is a large overlap between WoS-
Scopus, but the difference with Google Scholar is larger and it finds more unique
publications.
 Speed: Google Scholar is faster than WoS or Scopus. WoS has the disadvantage of being a
little slower than Scopus.
 Opinions: most "power users" like the Scopus interface and value the Refine and Citation
Tracker, but it can not replace -for the time being- the Journal Citation Reports.

Source: Bosman, J., I.v. Mourik, M. Rasch, E. Sieverts & H. Verhoeff (2006). Scopus reviewed and compared; the
coverage and functionality of the citation database Scopus, including comparisons with Web of Science and Google
Scholar. (http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/DARLIN/2006-1220-200432/Scopus%20doorgelicht%20&%20vergeleken%20-
%20translated.pdf) – includes updated info. -vf.
 Scopus and WoS: Citation Count
 Scopus vs. WoS
 14.0% (278) more citations by Scopus
 More comprehensive coverage by Scopus (15,000 vs. 8,700 periodicals)
 Scopus + WoS
 Scopus increases WoS citations by 35% (710)
 WoS increases Scopus citations by 19.0% (432)
 Relatively low overlap (58%) and high uniqueness (42%)

Scopus 26% 58% 16% Web of Science

(2,301) (710) (1,591) (432) (2,023)

Scopus  WoS
(2,733) Source: Meho & Yang
 GS vs. ScopusWoS
 GS increases WoSScopus citations by 93% (2,552)
 ScopusWoS increases GS citations by 26% (1,104)
 GS identifies 53% (or 1,448) more citations than WoSScopus
 GS has much better coverage of conference proceedings
 (1,849 by GS vs. 496 by ScopusWoS)
 GS has over twice as many unique citations as ScopusWoS
 (2,552 vs. 1,104, respectively)

Google Scholar 48% 31% 21% ScopusWoS

(4,181) (2,552) (1,629) (1,104) (2,733)

GS  ScopusWoS
(5,285) Source: Meho & Yang
 Meho & Yang’s Findings
• Scopus, WoS, and GS complement rather than replace each other

• GS can be useful in showing evidence of broader international impact than

could possibly be done through Scopus and WoS

• GS can be very useful for citation searching purposes; however, it is not

conducive for large-scale comparative citation analyses

• Multiple sources of citations should be used to generate accurate citation

counts and rankings

• Citation databases complement one another

• Small overlap between sources may significantly influence relative ranking
• citation coverage varies by research area, document type, language
 Common Citation Searching Problems

 Misspellings.
 Uncommon spellings/languages/special symbols
 Author name variations
 Incorrect citations (for example, year, volume number,
inconsistencies of abbreviation).
 Author order – may only be cited by the first author.
 Self-citations.
 Monographic literature is not well covered.
 Database Strengths
Scopus’ strengths:
 interface design/search features
 recent content (post 1996)
 the sciences (especially STM)
 conference proceedings
 openURL compliant

WoS’ strengths:
 humanities coverage
 older publications
 journal citation reports/impact factors/h-index

Google Scholar’s strengths:

 number of articles found
 international/multilingual coverage
 better coverage of citations in books and other non-journal sources
 Database Weaknesses
Scopus’ weaknesses:
 humanities content (also math, physics and business/management)
 older articles (pre 1996)

WoS’ weaknesses:
 limited coverage (very few non-ISI-listed/non-English/open access sources)
 expensive back-files
 poor external linking capabilities (links are long and contain session ID)

Google Scholar’s weaknesses:

 very few advanced search/limit/sort features
 inclusion of non-scholarly sources
 significantly more time needed to weed/check sources
 lack of transparency regarding source selection, number of documents,
coverage, indexing, etc.
 difficult to export citations
 incorrect citations from improper scans
 Sources
 Bauer, K., & Bakkalbasi, N. (2005). An examination of citation counts in a new scholarly
communication environment. D-Lib Magazine , 11(9).
(http://dlib.org/dlib/september05/bauer/09bauer.html)

 Bosman, J., Mourik, I.v. Rasch, Sieverts, M. E., & Verhoeff, H. (2006). Scopus reviewed
and compared; the coverage and functionality of the citation database Scopus, including
comparisons with Web of Science and Google Scholar. (
http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/DARLIN/2006-1220-200432/Scopus%20doorgelicht%2
0&%20vergeleken%20-%20translated.pdf
)

 Harzing, A. W. K., & van der Wal, R. (2008) .Google Scholar as a new source for
citation analysis, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8. (
http://www.int-res.com/articles/esep2008/8/e008pp5.pdf)

 Hull, D., Pettifer, S.R., & Kell, D.B. (2008). Defrosting the Digital Library:
Bibliographic Tools for the Next Generation Web. PLoS Computational Biology 4(10):
e1000204 doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000204

 Meho, L.I., & Yang, K. (2007, preprint). A new era in citation and bibliometric analyses:
Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology. (http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0612/0612132.pdf)