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Google Scholar (beta)
Adapted from: RMIT University Library 2005, Google Scholar (beta or test version) (opens in new window), RMIT University, viewed 27 February 2006.
Google Scholar searches across a broad range of scholarly and other
literature, including peer-reviewed papers, journal articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Material may come from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint
repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
You can search Google Scholar from the Library's Databases pages. Use the links on these pages, rather than a direct link to Google Scholar, for
best access to full text from off campus.
- Google Scholar has been set up to identify UniSA
users on and off campus, and to recognise UniSA subscriptions which
are entitled to fulltext access. Note that it does not cover all
the material in our databases. At present it includes full text from
publishers such as ACM, Blackwell Synergy, IEEE, Institute of Physics,
Springer and Wiley.
- Google Scholar (Beta) is still a test version, and
may not always return the results you expect. Usually, clicking on
the article title retrieves full text if it is available. If a link does not retrieve full text, check other results in the same group,
or check the Library catalogue.
- If you are using Google Scholar from off campus,
you must set your preferences to include UniSA holdings in order
to access links to subscribed journals. From the Scholar Preferences
page, type University of South Australia in the text box in the 'Library Links' section and click 'Save Preferences'.
- Always use the Library catalogue to search by title
for journals that did not link to the full text through Google Scholar
- because there is a lot more in the Library's collection of databases
and e-journals than is currently accessible through Google Scholar.
As with any indexing service, you should be aware of both its strengths
and weaknesses. There is an article on this subject, 'Google Scholar: the pros and the cons' (opens in new window) (Jacso 2005) but here are some main points:
- The search interface is straightforward, including
an Advanced Search option
- The Cited by link identifies
and connects to other papers in Google Scholar that cite the article
- If Google Scholar is aware of a full text subscription
for UniSA to the cited text, clicking on the article title may retrieve
the full text
- Search results may also include links to full text
articles freely available on the Internet
- Google Scholar may offer a number of versions of
the same article depending on where it was found (the publisher's
website, the author's website, a pre-print service, etc). However,
always use the Library catalogue to search by title for journals
that did not link to the full text through Google Scholar or where
you are uncertain which version of an article to use.
- It is still in beta (or test) version, meaning that
there are still many bugs or errors
- Coverage is predominantly medical, scientific and
technical. It is not the best source for social science or humanities
topics or Australian material
- Google provides no information about which publishers
or sites are searched, the extent of the material included and the
frequency of updating, while the criteria for identifying an article
or site as "scholarly" are still fuzzy
- There are many errors in the indexing, e.g. authors
identified as D Analysis or D Statistics
- Google Scholar will not provide all the material
you need - and there is much more scholarly material available to
you as a member of the UniSA community.
- Relying on just one source is rarely the best search
strategy. If you are serious about your research, you will want to
search all relevant databases, varying your search strategy and taking
advantage of the specialised indexing that databases can offer.
- To get the best results, use Library databases which
have been carefully selected to provide comprehensive, retrospective
and up-to-date access to scholarly literature.
- If you need help:
Ask the Library for
advice about the best resources
To sum up:
Google Scholar can be a useful place to start, but for extensive coverage
of scholarly information, rely on the Library's databases as your best source.
References
RMIT University Library. 2005, Google
Scholar (beta or test version) (opens in new window), RMIT University, viewed 27 February 2006
Jacso, P. 2005, 'Google Scholar: the pros and cons', Online
Information Review, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 208-214. Viewed 27 February 2006 via Emerald
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