Google Scholar Unveils New Results Sorting Option and Other Ways to Keep Current
Search Briefs Google Scholar Unveils New Sorting Option and Other Ways to Keep Current
Part 1
Some news from the Googleplex this afternoon. First, Google has unveiled new versions of Google Scholar for Germany and Spain.
Second, Google Scholar now offers a new sorting option. In addition to the "all articles" sort, top right on the results page, you'll see a new link labeled "recent articles." What's important to realize is that this new option is not a date based sort. According to Google engineer, Dejan Perkovic, who posts on the Google Blog, "It's not just a plain sort by date, but rather we try to rank recent papers the way researchers do, by looking at the prominence of the author's and journal's previous papers, how many citations it already has, when it was written, and so on." To use an an ISI term, think impact factor "like." Interesting and potentially useful and another reason for Scopus (Elsevier) and ISI (Thomson) to keep tabs on what Google is up to.
+ Here's a simple, unsophisticated search (the way most people search) of Google Scholar for research for avian influenza. First, using the "all articles" sort and then the "recent articles" sort.
+ Results
Before I begin I'm going to do something I don't like to do, use Google page estimates. They are often WAY off the mark. However, since Google Scholar is a smaller database vs. the main Google database, we will use them. As always, be careful.
++ Avian Influenza (All Articles)
13,400 results.
++ Avian Influenza (Recent Results)
The number of results drops by more than 50% to 5,030. REMEMBER, this number is an estimate and even if the researcher wanted to view all of the results, they are not able to. Just like Google Web Search, Google Scholar shows only 1000 results maximum per query. In the first 30 results the
1 article from 2006 (appears at #27)
8 articles from 2005
17 articles from 2004
2 articles from 2003
2 articles from 2002
Note: A Google Scholar search for "avian influenza" limited to 2006 shows 485 results. But only 1 2006 dated article appears in the first 30 results. Perhaps, this gives us a bit of a clue to the defintion of "recent" and how publication date influences or does not influence the "recent" sort. I would think that on a changing topic like the avian influenza, recent publications would get a higher weighting. In case your interested, in the first 100 results, using the recent sort, only 15 articles from 2006 appear.
Of course, this is only one search example but we think GS would be even more useful if researcher's were told:
+ The overall date range of material when using the "recent results" sort without having to look entry by entry.
+ Offering a pure date sort would be useful. Finally, a way of highlighting articles in the "all results" sort that also appear on the "recent articles" list. Of course, a journal list that would also provide the indexed date ranges included in GS would be useful.
+ Knowing how often the database was updated (hourly? daily? weekly? monthly? longer?) would be good to know.
+ What methodology Google uses to determine "subject area" limits? Are they sourced based?
+ We've noticed lots of material that shows ingentaconnect.com as the source on a results list. For example, see the third entry here. IngentaConnect is not a journal or publication. It's a document delivery service. The source of the article is the Journal of Dental Hygiene. Remember, Google Scholar remains a work in progress so it's likely that these issues will be worked out. I'll admit to noticing this issue because it related to a pet peeve. It's when people cite Google News, Yahoo News, Moreover, or one of a number news aggregators as THE source. They're aggregators of disparate sources and with just a few exceptions don't have a team of journalists reporting the news like AP, Reuters, WSJ, NY Times, AFP, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, etc.
Finally, you can also use the "recent article" sort with Google Scholar Advanced Search. In other words, create a search limited to a single year(s) and then view the articles ranked using Google Scholar's "recent" sort" methodology which is not explained (is it possible to get more documentation?) other than what Dejan Perkovic says in his blog posting.
Also, via the Google Scholar preferences page, you can now import citations into BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks. This feature comes about a week after MSN Academic Live launched with citation import options to BibTeX/EndNote. We've also learned that 13 union/regional catalogs are now included in the GS database. More here via Peter Suber and Google's Anurag Acharya.
Part II: Other Tools and Concepts to use to Keep Current with Academic and Other Types of Materials
Here are a few options to keep current with scholarly publications, new web entries, just about any web content. In most cases by "new" we mean publication date or posted date. To have material sorted using other metrics, you'll need to look at Web of Science, Scopus or the new Google Scholar feature.
Alerting Services
There are many of them out there. From the web-based TrackEngine, Trackle, and WatchThatPage.com to the client-based (and ResourceShelf favorite), WebSite-Watcher (WSW). Here are just a few ideas about how the RS team utilizes these tools. Btw, some of these services are more robust than others with WSW being the most useful (IMHO) and offering the most options. It's well worth the $40/U.S. fee. What all of these tools allow you to do is monitor pages (static web pages) and in some cases, dynamically generated search result pages for changes and new/changed content. A WSW add-on named Local Website Archive makes archiving any page very easy. Here are a few examples of how you might use these services to monitor the web for new scholarly or academic content.
+ Going to the source is one of our favorite things about the web. If there is an academic whose work is important to you, monitor their web page for new papers that they're making avaialable via their personal web site.
+ Often, universities will offer preprints and technical reports from a group at the
school and place them in a database. Set an alert and you'll be notified when new material is placed online. For example, we monitor the publication server from the Stanford Info Lab.
+ Create keyword searches in various databases like OAIster. Simply create a search (look at the limiting features available), take the url and then place it into WSW or a similar service. When new material hits the database matching your search criteria you'll be notified. This technique works for many but not all databases.
+ Monitor conference web sites. If/When papers and presentations from the event become available online, you'll be the first to know.
+ Monitor the web for publicly available research, tech reports, etc. from corporations like Microsoft Research. For example, enter your keywords, consider limiting by date (let's say the current year), grab the url and go. It's that easy.
+ Monitor the "new" entry pages from preprint archives of interest like the arXiv.org and RePEc.
+ Yes, it's technically possible (but be careful, Google terms of service issues) to create a url with Google Scholar and MS Academic Live and monitor for new additions with an alert service. Consider limiting to the current year and checking the max of 100 results at a time. Of course, if the new entry doesn't fall into the first 100 results you will not be alerted to it. Another reason to be as specific as possible.
Our suggestion is to monitor once a day or two/three times a week.
Table of Contents (Direct from Publishers)
Most offer services and they're free. Most often linked direct from publisher web site. This page from the City University of Hong Kong offers a bunch of direct links to these types of services but by no means is complete.
Table of Contents (via Ingenta and InfoTrieve)
+ Ingenta delivered via RSS or email. Free. Registration required.
+ InfoTrieve. Searching the toc database (most current issue) is free. E-mail alerts are fee-based.
Books
+ Glenn Fleishman's wonderful ISBN.nu offers RSS alerts for any author, title, or subject search in their metasearch of multiple online bookstores. Look for the RSS icon in the address bar. More here
+ Amazon.com offers an alert service as do many other online bookstores.
Libraries
More and more libraries are offering their new book lists online and many via RSS. Here's an example from the University of Alberta.
It's More than Text
Use an alerting tool or RSS to monitor university sites for lectures and presentations. The ResearchChannel.org aggregates lectures from many schools. Stay ahead of the action by monitoring the premiere page for new progams.
Don't Forget E-Mail
Numerous email alerts are still available. For example, E-LIS (E-Prints in Library and Information Science) offers a daily email alert or RSS feed. You might also want to plug in a keyword search into METALIS, limit by year, and plug the URL into an alert service.
Traditional Database Providers
These days most database services from LN to Factiva to ProQuest allow users to create keyword based search strategies and be alerted when new material hits the database. Since many of these databases offer numerous searchable fields, it's possible to create extremely specific alerts. Web-based databases are also included. For example with PubMed you create search strategies and have new results delivered by email or RSS. Personalized RSS feeds are also available at Engineering Village 2.
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