Tale of Three Databases: The Implication of Coverage Demonstrated for a Sample Query

Coverage is an important criterion when evaluating information systems. This exploratory study investigates this issue by submitting the same query to different databases relevant to the query topic. Data were retrieved from three databases: ACM Digital Library, Web of Science (WOS) (with the Proceedings Citation Index) and Scopus. The search phrase was “information retrieval”, publication years were between 2013 and 2016. Altogether 8,699 items were retrieved, out of which 5,306 (61%) items were retrieved by a single database only, and only 977 (11%) items were located in all three databases. The results from the three databases were analyzed and compared by number of publications and citations counts, for the whole time period and by year. Document types distribution and the h-indices of the retrieved datasets were also compared. The 977 items retrieved by all three databases were further analyzed, citations were also compared to altmetric data for these publications, collected from Mendeley.

[1]  Henk F. Moed,et al.  Suitability of Google Scholar as a source of scientific information and as a source of data for scientific evaluation - Review of the Literature , 2017, J. Informetrics.

[2]  Judit Bar-Ilan,et al.  Bibliometrics of "Information Retrieval" - A Tale of Three Databases , 2017, BIRNDL@SIGIR.

[3]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Mendeley readership counts: An investigation of temporal and disciplinary differences , 2016, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[4]  Adèle Paul-Hus,et al.  The journal coverage of Web of Science and Scopus: a comparative analysis , 2015, Scientometrics.

[5]  Rodrigo Costas,et al.  How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of ‘alternative metrics’ in scientific publications , 2014, Scientometrics.

[6]  Judit Bar-Ilan,et al.  Coverage and adoption of altmetrics sources in the bibliometric community , 2014, Scientometrics.

[7]  S. D. De Groote,et al.  Coverage of Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science: a case study of the h-index in nursing. , 2012, Nursing outlook.

[8]  Philip Barnett,et al.  Comparing Unique Title Coverage of Web of Science and Scopus in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences , 2012 .

[9]  Bjorn De Sutter,et al.  To be or not to be cited in computer science , 2012, CACM.

[10]  Christina L. Hennessey.  ACM Digital Library , 2012 .

[11]  Harald Dyckhoff,et al.  Coverage of Business Administration Literature in Google Scholar: Analysis and Comparison with Econbiz, Scopus and Web of Science , 2012 .

[12]  Christopher D. Manning,et al.  Introduction to Information Retrieval , 2010, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[13]  Jorge E. Hirsch,et al.  An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output that takes into account the effect of multiple coauthorship , 2009, Scientometrics.

[14]  Judit Bar-Ilan,et al.  Web of Science with the Conference Proceedings Citation Indexes: the case of computer science , 2010, Scientometrics.

[15]  Péter Jacsó,et al.  Database source coverage: hypes, vital signs and reality checks , 2009, Online Inf. Rev..

[16]  Vincent Larivière,et al.  Comparing Bibliometric Statistics Obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus , 2009, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[17]  松田 直人.  『Google Scholar』の利点 , 2009 .

[18]  Henk F. Moed,et al.  Coverage and citation impact of oncological journals in the Web of Science and Scopus , 2008, J. Informetrics.

[19]  Steve Pettifer,et al.  Defrosting the Digital Library: Bibliographic Tools for the Next Generation Web , 2008, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[20]  Lars Iselid,et al.  Web of Science and Scopus: a journal title overlap study , 2008, Online Inf. Rev..

[21]  Judit Bar-Ilan,et al.  Which h-index? — A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar , 2008, Scientometrics.

[22]  Lokman I. Meho,et al.  Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus scopus and google scholar , 2007, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[23]  Rafael Ball,et al.  Science indicators revisited - Science Citation Index versus SCOPUS: A bibliometric comparison of both citation databases , 2007, Inf. Serv. Use.

[24]  Marjori Matzke,et al.  F1000Prime recommendation of An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. , 2005 .

[25]  Bernard Rous,et al.  The ACM digital library , 2001, CACM.

[26]  Péter Jacsó,et al.  Content Evaluation of Databases. , 1997 .

[27]  Lutishoor Salisbury,et al.  Access to Information in Both CitaDel and FirstSearch: A Comparative Study of Dissertation Coverage , 1995 .

[28]  Performance of online biomedical databases in rheumatology. , 1994, The Journal of rheumatology.

[29]  Jati K. Sengupta,et al.  Introduction to Information , 1993 .

[30]  A. Cawkell.  Science Citation Index , 1970, Nature.

[31]  C. Cleverdon.  The critical appraisal of information retrieval systems , 1968 .

[32]  S. Lazerow.  The Institute of Scientific Information , 1961, Nature.