Citation Analysis with Microsoft Academic

We explore if and how Microsoft Academic (MA) could be used for bibliometric analyses. First, we examine the Academic Knowledge API (AK API), an interface to access MA data, and compare it to Google Scholar (GS). Second, we perform a comparative citation analysis of researchers by normalizing data from MA and Scopus. We find that MA offers structured and rich metadata, which facilitates data retrieval, handling and processing. In addition, the AK API allows retrieving frequency distributions of citations. We consider these features to be a major advantage of MA over GS. However, we identify four main limitations regarding the available metadata. First, MA does not provide the document type of a publication. Second, the 'fields of study' are dynamic, too specific and field hierarchies are incoherent. Third, some publications are assigned to incorrect years. Fourth, the metadata of some publications did not include all authors. Nevertheless, we show that an average-based indicator (i.e. the journal normalized citation score; JNCS) as well as a distribution-based indicator (i.e. percentile rank classes; PR classes) can be calculated with relative ease using MA. Hence, normalization of citation counts is feasible with MA. The citation analyses in MA and Scopus yield uniform results. The JNCS and the PR classes are similar in both databases, and, as a consequence, the evaluation of the researchers' publication impact is congruent in MA and Scopus. Given the fast development in the last year, we postulate that MA has the potential to be used for full-fledged bibliometric analyses.Comment: preprin

The concordance of field-normalized scores based on Web of Science and Microsoft Academic data: A case study in computer sciences

In order to assess Microsoft Academic as a useful data source for evaluative bibliometrics it is crucial to know, if citation counts from Microsoft Academic could be used in common normalization procedures and whether the normalized scores agree with the scores calculated on the basis of established databases. To this end, we calculate the field-normalized citation scores of the publications of a computer science institute based on Microsoft Academic and the Web of Science and estimate the statistical concordance of the scores. Our results suggest that field-normalized citation scores can be calculated with Microsoft Academic and that these scores are in good agreement with the corresponding scores from the Web of Science.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Microsoft Academic is on the verge of becoming a bibliometric superpower

Last year, the new Microsoft Academic service was launched. Sven E. Hug and Martin P. Brändle look at how it compares with more established competitors such as Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. While there are reservations about the availability of instructions for novice users, Microsoft Academic has impressive semantic search functionality, broad coverage, structured and rich metadata, and solid citation analysis features. Moreover, accessing raw data is relatively cheap. Given these benefits and its fast pace of development, Microsoft Academic is on the verge of becoming a bibliometric superpower

Software tools for conducting bibliometric analysis in science: An up-to-date review

Bibliometrics has become an essential tool for assessing and analyzing the output of scientists, cooperation between universities, the effect of state-owned science funding on national research and development performance and educational efficiency, among other applications. Therefore, professionals and scientists need a range of theoretical and practical tools to measure experimental data. This review aims to provide an up-to-date review of the various tools available for conducting bibliometric and scientometric analyses, including the sources of data acquisition, performance analysis and visualization tools. The included tools were divided into three categories: general bibliometric and performance analysis, science mapping analysis, and libraries; a description of all of them is provided. A comparative analysis of the database sources support, pre-processing capabilities, analysis and visualization options were also provided in order to facilitate its understanding. Although there are numerous bibliometric databases to obtain data for bibliometric and scientometric analysis, they have been developed for a different purpose. The number of exportable records is between 500 and 50,000 and the coverage of the different science fields is unequal in each database. Concerning the analyzed tools, Bibliometrix contains the more extensive set of techniques and suitable for practitioners through Biblioshiny. VOSviewer has a fantastic visualization and is capable of loading and exporting information from many sources. SciMAT is the tool with a powerful pre-processing and export capability. In views of the variability of features, the users need to decide the desired analysis output and chose the option that better fits into their aims

Opracowanie w chmurze czy chmury nad opracowaniem? Automatyczne indeksowanie dokumentów a biblioteki

The paper presents recent research in the field of automatic indexing of text documents, inter alia, in libraries, and the attitudes of Polish academic librarians towards the computerization of the subject cataloging. The methods of literature review and survey were used along with the analysis of Polish academic curricula in the field of library and information science. The article demonstrates on several examples that the similarities in document layout and the topical diversity or homogeneity are the key factors in the computerization of cataloging. The survey conducted amongst Polish subject indexing specialists from academic libraries shows that they have highly limited knowledge about automatic indexing. The results are then compared with the findings of the study on German- and English-speaking librarians’ opinions about automatic subject indexing. They are similar to the outcomes of the previous research by Alice Keller into the attitudes of, among others, the English-speaking subjects

Does Microsoft Academic find early citations?

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in Scientometrics on 27/10/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2558-9 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This article investigates whether Microsoft Academic can use its web search component to identify early citations to recently published articles to help solve the problem of delays in research evaluations caused by the need to wait for citation counts to accrue. The results for 44,398 articles in Nature, Science and seven library and information science journals 1996-2017 show that Microsoft Academic and Scopus citation counts are similar for all years, with no early citation advantage for either. In contrast, Mendeley reader counts are substantially higher for more recent articles. Thus, Microsoft Academic appears to be broadly like Scopus for citation count data, and is apparently not more able to take advantage of online preprints to find early citations

Two new kids on the block: How do Crossref and Dimensions compare with Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science?

In the last three years, several new (free) sources for academic publication and citation data have joined the now well-established Google Scholar, complementing the two traditional commercial data sources: Scopus and the Web of Science. The most important of these new data sources are Microsoft Academic (2016), Crossref (2017) and Dimensions (2018). Whereas Microsoft Academic has received some attention from the bibliometric community, there are as yet very few studies that have investigated the coverage of Crossref or Dimensions. To address this gap, this brief letter assesses Crossref and Dimensions coverage in comparison to Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science through a detailed investigation of the full publication and citation record of a single academic, as well as six top journals in Business & Economics. Overall, this first small-scale study suggests that, when compared to Scopus and the Web of Science, Crossref and Dimensions have a similar or better coverage for both publications and citations, but a substantively lower coverage than Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic. If our findings can be confirmed by larger-scale studies, Crossref and Dimensions might serve as good alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science for both literature reviews and citation analysis. However, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic maintain their position as the most comprehensive free sources for publication and citation data

Early Mendeley readers correlate with later citation counts

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in Scientometrics on 26/03/2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2715-9 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Counts of the number of readers registered in the social reference manager Mendeley have been proposed as an early impact indicator for journal articles. Although previous research has shown that Mendeley reader counts for articles tend to have a strong positive correlation with synchronous citation counts after a few years, no previous studies have compared early Mendeley reader counts with later citation counts. In response, this first diachronic analysis compares reader counts within a month of publication with citation counts after 20 months for ten fields. There were moderate or strong correlations in eight out of ten fields, with the two exceptions being the smallest categories (n=18, 36) with wide confidence intervals. The correlations are higher than the correlations between later citations and early citations, showing that Mendeley reader counts are more useful early impact indicators than citation counts

Two new kids on the block: How do Crossref and Dimensions compare with Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science?

In the last three years, several new (free) sources for academic publication and citation data have joined the now well-established Google Scholar, complementing the two traditional commercial data sources: Scopus and the Web of Science. The most important of these new data sources are Microsoft Academic (2016), Crossref (2017) and Dimensions (2018). Whereas Microsoft Academic has received some attention from the bibliometric community, there are as yet very few studies that have investigated the coverage of Crossref or Dimensions. To address this gap, this brief letter assesses Crossref and Dimensions coverage in comparison to Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science through a detailed investigation of the full publication and citation record of a single academic, as well as six top journals in Business & Economics. Overall, this first small-scale study suggests that, when compared to Scopus and the Web of Science, Crossref and Dimensions have a similar or better coverage for both publications and citations, but a substantively lower coverage than Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic. If our findings can be confirmed by larger-scale studies, Crossref and Dimensions might serve as good alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science for both literature reviews and citation analysis. However, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic maintain their position as the most comprehensive free sources for publication and citation data