1. Academic Search Engines
Online SEARCHING For professional or academic purposes – part ii
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

2. Summary 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

3. Inputs: Information sources
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

4. Inputs: Typology of documents
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

5. Output: Types of Retrieved Documents
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

6. The main Academic-Search Engines
Google Scholar (Google)
scholar.google.com
Scirus (Elsevier)
Academic Live (Microsoft) academic.live.com
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

7. Google Scholar - I Google Scholar Inputs: Special features:
All sources and types, except patents
Special features:
Citation analysis, ranking and navigation options
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

8. Google Scholar - II September 2007
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

9. Scirus - I Scirus Inputs: Special features:
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

10. Scirus II
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

11. Live Academic - I Live Academic Inputs: Special features:
All sources, except patents
Special features:
Visualization, sort and exportation options in the results page
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

12. Live Academic - II September 2007
L. Codina. UPF Interdisciplinary CSIM Master
September 2007

13. Ranking by amount of information
Scirus
Google Scholar
Live
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

14. Conclusions - I
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

15. Conclusions - II
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