Impact of using Google books, Scopus, Microsoft Academic, and Mendeley for PhD dissertations

Introduction

The Institute for Scientific Information created the first scientific citation indexes (ISI). The Science Citation Index (SCI) was first published in 1964, followed by the Social Sciences Citation Index (1973) and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1984). (1978). These citation indexes were uploaded online in 1997 under the term “Web of Science.” These reference indexes, as well as several new ones including the Emerging Sources Citation Index, were recently renamed the “Web of Science Core Collection” ( WoS). The accessibility of this data was critical to the growth of statistical science studies as a discipline.

Doctoral thesis is single-authored works that summarize two or three years of scholarly study and are typically prepared by newly qualified scholars. Despite the fact that elements of certain thesis appear in scholarly papers such as peer-reviewed publications, they are nonetheless deemed significant enough to be archived and, progressively, published online. Every year, a great number of selected studies are written, but no effective approach for evaluating their scholarly influence has been created, especially for major research assessment projects. This is a concern since institutions, colleges, and research sponsors might fairly want to evaluate the study value of the PhD program they sponsor, rather than simply looking at graduation rates or job numbers.

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Academic institutions and sponsors may also want to evaluate the effect of conventional thesis because there are other PhD options to explore, such as PhDs by printing or “light” papers, which are collections of papers published with an introduction section. In contrast, if these are often mentioned, it may be worthwhile to encourage young people to release them as volumes. The  presenting thesis is a considerable volume of unique work is usually the culmination of a research doctorate.

Evaluation on Academic Influence of Theses

WoS or Scopus Cited References: The fact that the references were to thesis rather than other forms of documents had gone unnoticed by WoS. Furthermore, because the publishing institution is not indexed by WoS, the filter method cannot be utilized to narrow results down by university or nation. Scopus Cited References were more common in the arts and social sciences than in science, technology, and medical fields.

Google Scholar Citations: Older doctorate, as well as the sociology, arts, and crafts, have more Google Scholar citations. Dissertations that have multiple versions published elsewhere on the web can be allocated by Google Scholar to any of the online offers, making them undetectable to Google Scholar search with their other resources.

Google Books Citations: Although no study appears to have looked into referrals from Google Books to thesis, it is a significant site of grey content evaluation process, and inquiries can be computerized. As a result, Google Volumes might serve as an auto source of references for research papers, which could be particularly useful in disciplines where published books and memoirs are significant.

Microsoft Academic: Microsoft Academic claims to have indexed more than 200, 000,000 research articles, the majority of which are academic journals and research articles. Microsoft Academia locates twice as many references for freshly released or in print items as Scopus and finds somewhat more references to research papers than traditional citation indexes.

Mendeley: There is currently a lot of evidence showing the number of Mendeley readers correlate with the number of citations for published academic journals and conference proceedings. The reading statistics from Mendeley is a particularly important metric for determining the early impact of scientific articles. Editorials, letters, news, and meeting descriptions are examples of useful articles that are seldom referenced by Mendeley subscribers.

Conclusion

Doctoral thesis cited in a variety of ways, depending on the discipline. Google Books citations to these were reasonably prevalent in the liberal arts, whereas a fourth of theses in Technology had at least one reference in Scopus or Microsoft Academic. Although the best source of data depends on the particular subject, it is now essential to employ a wide range of resources to quickly create effectiveness data for large numbers of thesis in order to help assess their significance.

Reporting reference counts for thesis and contrasting them to the standard value could be useful for application to jobs or advancement for students and researchers, especially in disciplines where academic journals are not widely used. Because the majority of dissertations aren’t mentioned in Scopus, Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, or read in Mendeley, even a single reference to a thesis from any of these sites indicates that it has had an above-average influence. Contact PhD Assistance for any of your PhD requirements as we offer PhD Dissertation Writing UK, Content Quality of Dissertation Proposal UK.

Reference

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  2. Kousha, K., & Thelwall, M. (2020). Google Books, Scopus, Microsoft Academic, and Mendeley for impact assessment of doctoral dissertations: A multidisciplinary analysis of the UK. Quantitative Science Studies1(2), 479-504.
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  4. Purnell, P. J. (2022). The prevalence and impact of university affiliation discrepancies between four bibliographic databases–Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, and Microsoft Academic. Quantitative Science Studies, 1-47.