Brijesh

I am not up to speed on direct research in this area but in terms of coverage EMBASE & Pubmed / Medline are roughly equivalent - clearly they are not 100% identical or else they would, in effect, be the same database!

It does seem clear that worldwide that Pubmed & Medline have more recognition and therefore if one were to undertake a search in a relevant area you would be less likely to be challenged if you only used Pubmed compared to only using EMBASE. Most experts would however agree that comprehensive searching should include both. SCOPUS has received even less recognition but my impression is that it is more comprehensive than either.

However your question related to the use of PUBMED indexation as a means of evaluating employees... In so far as inclusion in any database confers 'status' then I would agree that EMBASE confers as much status as PUBMED (or it should). However everyone should bear in mind that inclusion in a database tells you nothing whatsoever about the quality of the science and therefore about  the quality of the scientist.

A step up above counting indexed publications is looking a the impact factor of the journals you publish in. The issue is the same. Just because the journal I publish in attracts an average number of citations x you have no idea about the quality of my article. indeed, you have no idea about the number of citations to my article. Journal citations have highly skewed distributions. Most articles get far less than the mean number (IF) with a few articles delivering a large proportion of all citations.

While all this should remind us all that the quality of science cannot be judged by such metrics (number of publications or number of citations) I think it should point us toward looking at citations to articles as a measure  of dissemination - not the publication of papers that are not read - however 'good' the journal may be.

If that is the focus, the indexation by a given database is irrelevant to the evaluation. The database tells you nothing about the article although it is of course a way of increasing the exposure of an article, just as publication in a high IF journal is.

Careful use of indeces such as the h-index seems like a better way forward to me.

Peter 

Hello as far as I know the two database have a slighty different orientation: EMBASE covers more clinical research and evidence based rather experimental.

Thank you ,regardsValentina

Respectfully, I would like to suggest that all of them are basically dinosaurs that should either merge, evolve, or rightfully declare themselves irrelevant... during my short career, I've seen people go from using PubMed and EMBASE primarily to almost never needing to use them because of the development of sites like Google Scholar and other, more robust information management websites.

Although there is still a tiny bit of prestige from "being listed on PubMed", EMBASE has lost a lot of its former reputation... At the same time PubMed is realizing that Google Scholar is putting them out of business - hence the initiatives to provide free full text etc...

Cheers,

Stan

Pubmed and medline should be considered as indexing sources. However, embase is not an indexing database

Well I think one of the principal differences is that Medline can be explored without having a password. It is needed in Embase. When you are running a systematic review, however,  it is important to explore the more databases you can to have a more complete research. Some RCT can be find in one database and no in other.

By using Google Scholar, one can obtain many articles. The problem of them is that some oare indexed only in Scielo and no in Scopus.