The evolution of the electronic age has led to the development of numerous medical databases on the World Wide Web, offering search facilities on a particular subject and the ability to perform citation analysis. We compared the content coverage and practical utility of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The official Web pages of the databases were used to extract information on the range of journals covered, search facilities and restrictions, and update frequency. We used the example of a keyword search to evaluate the usefulness of these databases in biomedical information retrieval and a specific published article to evaluate their utility in performing citation analysis. All databases were practical in use and offered numerous search facilities.
source: Article Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Sch...
Researchers frequently utilize citation indexing databases like Google Scholar, Lens, Semantic Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and ResearchGate to find, access, and evaluate scholarly literature. While there are some similarities among these databases, there are also differences in terms of their coverage, scope, search capabilities, and citation metrics.
Google Scholar: Google Scholar is a free search engine that catalogs academic writing from a variety of fields and sources, such as books, theses, journal articles, conference papers, and preprints. It covers a wide range of publications, including some that other databases might not have indexed. The h-index, i10-index, and total citations are among Google Scholar's citation metrics.
Lens is a free and open-source search engine that covers scholarly literature, patents, and other information pertaining to research. It enables users to look up and access more than 200 million patent documents and 100 million academic publications from different sources. The overall amount of citations, citations per year, and the h-index are all included in The Lens's citation metrics.
Semantic Scholar: Semantic Scholar is a free AI-powered search engine that prioritizes computer science and biomedical research. It indexes and categorizes articles based on their content, citations, and authors and offers readers personalized recommendations based on their search history. The h-index, the total number of citations, and the total number of papers published are among Semantic Scholar's citation metrics.
Scopus: Elsevier owns the commercial citation database Scopus, which contains information on over 70 million articles in a range of subject areas, including the social sciences, technology, and health care. It indexes books, journals, conference proceedings, patents, and conference proceedings and offers users citation metrics like the h-index, the number of citations, and the citation effect of specific publications.
Web of Science: Owned by Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science is a for-profit citation database that includes information from more than 33,000 publications in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. It gives users access to citation data like the journal impact factor, the number of citations, and the h-index.
ResearchGate: ResearchGate is a social networking site that enables scholars to collaborate with one another, share their work, and find new research. Additionally, it offers users citation metrics like the h-index, citation count, and RG score, which is determined by the user's research activity on the platform.
Each of these citation indexing databases has advantages and disadvantages of its own. Depending on their needs and preferences, researchers may opt to use one or more of these databases. Although citation metrics can be helpful in assessing the significance of specific publications or researchers, they should only be used sparingly and in conjunction with other metrics and qualitative evaluations.
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