Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar: Which to Use?
Q: When looking for citation counts or h-index, is it better to use Web of Science, Scopus, or Google Scholar?
A: Since each indexes different content, it is a good idea to search all three, export the results into citation managers, and remove all duplicates. You may also want to consult discipline-specific databases that offer citation data.
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Comparing Tools for Citation AnalysisCompares strengths and weaknesses of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar.
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Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: a systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categoriesArticle published in the Journal of Informetrics in March 2019.
Publish or Perish (free software)
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Publish or Perish programPublish or Perish is a downloadable software program that uses data from Google Scholar to calculate a variety of metrics, including the h-index:
- Total number of papers and total number of citations
- Average citations per paper, citations per author, papers per author, and citations per year
- Hirsch's h-index and related parameters
- Egghe's g-index
- The contemporary h-index
- Three variations of individual h-indices
- The average annual increase in the individual h-index
- The age-weighted citation rate
- An analysis of the number of authors per paper.
The results are available on-screen and can also be copied to the Windows clipboard (for pasting into other applications) or saved to several other formats.
Advantages:
- Accesses a wide range of data not covered by other tools
- Better coverage of books, conference proceedings than WoS or similar tools
Disadvantages:
- No list of journals or other materials indexed
- No indication of time period covered
- Notably poor coverage of material only in print
- Duplicates have to be removed manually
- No means to distinguish between authors with the same initials
Publons
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PublonsPublons allows you to track your publications, citations, and contributed peer reviews in one dashboard. Publons also calculates your h-index (and displays all data on a public-facing dashboard). Publons is part of Web of Science Group.