Academic Search Engines

1
ONLINE SEARCHING FOR PROFESSIONAL OR
ACADEMIC PURPOSES PART II

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Summary
2

Academic Search Engine Characterization

Inputs:

Information sources
Kind of documents

Output:

Types of retrieved documents (access)

Main academic search Engines

Google Scholar
Scirus
Live Academic

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Inputs: Information sources

3

Typology of institutions or corporations web sites

indexed by the A-SE

Universities (.edu sites)

Research centres (NASA, RAND, etc.)
Government (sites related with science, technology, etc.)
Journal and book publishers
Library collections
Digital repositories (e-prints, e-books, etc.)

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Inputs: Typology of documents

4

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Web pages (and any kind of documents: pdf, word,

etc.) published in web sites
Articles of peer review journals (both open access
and subscription-based access)
Academic works, like dissertations, thesis, etc.
Patents
Books
References (not the full text document, only the
bibliographic reference)

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Output: Types of Retrieved Documents

5

The retrieved documents in the search engine

results page may be:

Free (web pages, open access peer review journal articles, etc.)
Free if you are in the campus or connected to the campus
network (articles of the peer review journal that are subscribed
by your University)
Not free: by payment because the journal is not subscribed by
your university (articles of the peer review subscription-based
journal)
References only (not the document: you have to find out the
full text document by other ways)

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

The main Academic-Search Engines

6

Google Scholar (Google)

scholar.google.com
Scirus (Elsevier)

www.scirus.com
Academic Live (Microsoft)

academic.live.com

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Google Scholar - I
7

Google Scholar

Inputs:

All sources and types, except patents

Special features:

Citation analysis, ranking and navigation options

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Google Scholar - II
8

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Scirus - I
9

Scirus

Inputs:

All sources and types, except books and references

Special features:

The search facilities, the characteristics of the results page, the

diversity of sources, the access to full text patents and the total
amount of available information

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Scirus II
10

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Live Academic - I
11

Live Academic

Inputs:

All sources, except patents

Special features:

Visualization, sort and exportation options in the results page

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Live Academic - II
12

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Ranking by amount of information

13

Scirus
2. Google Scholar
3. Live
1.

A simple test. Keyword: hypertext

Number of results in:
Scirus:
615,695 documents
Google Scholar:
252,000 documents
Live:
12,153 documents
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Conclusions - I
14

Databases vs. search engines: What is the different role of each

system?

Academic databases (subscription-based):

Indispensable if you need to legitimate your work (for example, for a

dissertation or to submit a paper to a peer review journal)
If you want to be sure about the state of art in your field
The most trustworthy information

Academic Search Engines (free-access):

The most up to date information

Quickly and easy access to information
Useful information: more practical, more understandable, more direct and
academic-jargon free, etc. (but at your risk)
In addition, they contain, partially, the same documents that academic
databases (but it is not sure and it is at a very different proportion, depending
the field).

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007

Conclusions - II
15

Academic database will be essential for you for the

reasons mentioned in previous slide but the crude

truth is that Academic Search Engines will make your
life more easier.
In other words: probably, you will want to use search
engine because its easiness, and probably you will not
want to use databases because its (relative) difficulty,
but you have to use it.
So fortunately or unfortunately you will need both

L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master

September 2007