Google Books, Scopus, Microsoft Academic, and Mendeley for impact assessment of doctoral dissertations
A multidisciplinary analysis of the UK
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21255979 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kayvan Kousha (0000-0003-4827-971X, University of Wolverhampton), Mike Thelwall (0000-0001-6065-205X, University of Wolverhampton) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 479-504 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Quantitative Science Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2641-3337 • E-ISSN: 2641-3337 |
| Publisher | MIT Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1162/qss_a_00042 |
| OpenAlex | W3013246928 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 48 |
A research doctorate normally culminates in publishing a dissertation reporting a substantial body of novel work. In the absence of a suitable citation index, this article explores the relative merits of alternative methods for the large-scale assessment of dissertation impact, using 150,740 UK doctoral dissertations from 2009–2018. Systematic methods for this were designed for Google Books, Scopus, Microsoft Academic, and Mendeley. Fewer than 1 in 8 UK doctoral dissertations had at least one Scopus (12%), Microsoft Academic (11%), or Google Books citation (9%), or at least one Mendeley reader (5%). These percentages varied substantially by subject area and publication year. Google Books citations were more common in the Arts and Humanities (18%), whereas Scopus and Microsoft Academic citations were more numerous in Engineering (24%). In the Social Sciences, Google Books (13%) and Scopus (12%) citations were important and in Medical Sciences, Scopus and Microsoft Academic citations to dissertations were rare (6%). Few dissertations had Mendeley readers (from 3% in Science to 8% in the Social Sciences) and further analysis suggests that Google Scholar finds more citations, but does not report information about all dissertations within a repository and is not a practical tool for large-scale impact assessment
Citation · Citation analysis · Citation impact · Library science · MEDLINE · Microsoft excel · Political science · Publishing · Scopus · World Wide Web · Academic Publishing and Open Access · Computer Science · Meta-analysis and systematic reviews · scientometrics and bibliometrics research
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| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |