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Google Scholar (beta)

Adapted from: RMIT University Library 2005, Google Scholar (beta or test version), RMIT University, viewed 27 February 2006.

• Introducing Google Scholar
• How good is Google Scholar?
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Things to remember

Introducing Google Scholar

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.

How good is 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:

Strengths of Google Scholar:

• 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.

Weaknesses of Google Scholar:

• 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

Things to remember:

• 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), 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