A researcher may publish a numbers of journal or articles, however, there is no distinguish calculation to address the content quality of the papers. There is number of factors contributing to the quality of the publication such as the citation, expert review, ranking of journal and etc. By considering this factor, h-index was introduced by Hirsch [1] as a tool to measure the scientific publication output [2] of the researcher in term of quality and quantity. H-index will specifically address the issues of self citation, original research contribution, favourism and etc. It is an author-level metrics to explicitly measure the impact of the individual authors, researcher, academics and scholars. The h-index value is differing from one field to another, as it is highly affected by based on the discipline citation database, publication, ranges of years and etc. Hence, a low number of h-index that is considered low in one field might be considered quite high in another field. Part of the purpose of the h-index is to eliminate outlier publications that might give a skewed picture of a scientist’s impact. For instance, if a scientist published one paper many years ago that was cited 8546 times, but has since only published papers that have been cited 8 or 9 times each, a straight citation count for that scientist could make it seem that his or her long-term career work was very significant. The h-index, however, would be much lower, signifying that the scientist’s overall body of work was not necessarily as significant.
Basically, the formula of h-index is highly depending on the number of publications and the number of citations per publication. The reason, h index of one same author is different between Google Scholars (GS), Scopus (S) and Web of Science (WOS) due to the source of publication database, focus area, the maturity and etc. Each features have its own distinctive database, eventually will exhibit different value of h-index [3,4].
Interestingly, Scopus [5] lead in the database source as it encompasses a wide spectrum of focus area. Even though, Scopus only covered the databased from 1970s, but, due to extensive field covered on Physical sciences, health sciences, life sciences, social sciences & humanities, hence, the database of Scopus covered about 21,950 journals and 8 million proceeding with 22% of the journal is not in English. On the other hand, the earliest articles traced by the Web of Science, WOS [6,7] is from 1900 . WOS covered Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. WOS definitely have even, more historical depth as compared to Scopus. In term of database, WOS have 13,100 journals and 10.5 million proceedings that focusses on the Science, technology, social sciences, arts and humanities. The basic principles of WOS selection process are objectivity, selectivity and collection dynamics. There are 28 criteria used to evaluate journals.
Both, Scopus and WOS have distinguish and distinctive way of handling the databased by confining their data source only to classic academic source. On the other hand, Google Scholar grabs citation information comes from all over the internet. Each features are valid on its own. Google Scholars consider up to date, as their h-index is more up to date and it includes the citations before the articles officially published. Scopus and WOS, both have a systematic reviewer, meticulous reviewing process and board that will maintain and ensuring the quality of their articles is in top notch. Google Scholar’s approach is fully automatic and not subject to any review, it can also be manipulated easily. Researcher could simply upload false scholarly papers that give unsupported citation credit, or add papers to the Google Scholar profile that were not even authored by the person in question. There is always a room for improvement, but Google Scholar’s h-index is open an acts as a free alternative to the subscription based databases. To make it clear, the difference of Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholars, the distinguish factor are presented in the table 1.0
Table 1.0 : The Distinguish Factors of Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholars
| Features | Scopus | Web of Science | Google Scholar |
| Database | 250 million quality web sources, including 22 million patents. Searches in Scopus incorporate searches of scientific web pages through Scirus, and include author homepages, university sites and resources such as preprint servers and OAI compliant resources. | Covers 12,311+ journals from 256 categories, 110,000 proceedings from conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia worldwide | all over the internet |
| Proceedings | 8 million | 10.5 million | Unknown |
| Focus | Physical sciences, health sciences, life sciences, social sciences & humanities | Science, Social Sciences Arts & Humanities | All subject areas |
| Period covered | 1970 | Science from 1900 | Unknown |
| Accessibility Language | English abstract; 22% of journals are non-English | English abstract | Articles published in many languages |
| Interdisciplinary field coverage | Strength | Weakness | Strength |
| Updated | Daily | Daily | Unknown |
| Developer/Producer | Elsevier | Clarivate Analytics | |
| Citation analysis | Yes | Yes | No |
| Mark records | Yes | Yes | Yes, but requires login |
| Author profiles | Auto-generated by Scopus – edits only done by Scopus staff | Author-created as part of ResearcherID – edited by authors | Author created and edited |
| Strengths | · Visually stunning author and citation reports
· International and specialized disciplinary coverage · Includes Altmetrics when available (on abstract page) · Includes in-press articles |
· Covers only “journals of influence”
· Coverage back to 1900 · Organization name unification · Publisher neutral (they are an info provider, not a publisher) |
· Includes all types of documents – e.g., tutorials, posters, presentations
· Finds more citations in most subject areas · Book coverage via Google Books and free online publications. · International and interdisciplinary coverage |
| Weaknesses | · Early reports pointed out weak in social sciences and humanities
· Studies show still weak in sociology and physics/astronomy · Typographical errors in records |
· Covers only “journals of influence”
· Difficulty searching unusual author name formats: hyphenated, compound names, umlauts, etc. · Punctuation issues – e.g., ampersands in journal titles. |
· Difficult to narrow down common author name searches
· Few sorting options · Questionable content quality · Problems correctly ingesting meta-data from PDF files · Many non-peer-reviewed sources · Have to create a Scholar Citation Profile to create reports |
Conclusion
Based on the h-index of Google Scholars, Scopus and Web of Science, I believe Scopus is the most suitable for me as an academician as it is more inclusive than WoS and provides better coverage in my disciplines (social sciences). If I want people to simply view or get to know more about my works, Google Scholars might be the first option, however, it will not help me to sustain and become a better academician in a long run. The Scopus h-index will make sure the I practices and perform in term of the publication productivity and publication impact to the fullest. In addition, Scopus h-index will help to provide a great ecosystem to evaluate and asses the performance in my specific discipline. Scopus also have the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB), an international group of scientists, researchers and librarians who represent the major scientific disciplines to ensure that the high-quality and authenticity of the publish articles. Next, the calculation given by the Scopus is more thorough, meticulous and scrupulous to determine the significance of our ability to produce an impactful publications based on the ISI Indexed Journal. Besides that, Scopus delivers the broadest overview of global, interdisciplinary scientific data and literature, across all research fields. This provide a great platform for me to go depth and not only limit to my own discipline. Hence, Scopus h-index helps to measure the academician overall body of work, whether it is more or less significant. As an academician, I should take the opportunity to use h-index to leverage myself as the scholars and researchers.
References
- E. Hirsch (2005). An index to Quantify an Individual’s Scientific Output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102 (2005) 16569–16572.
- Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2005). A Hirsch-type index for journals. The scientist, 19(22), 8.
- Bosman, J., Mourik, I. V., Rasch, M., Sieverts, E., & Verhoeff, H. (2006). Scopus reviewed and compared: The coverage and functionality of the citation database Scopus, including comparisons with Web of Science and Google Scholar.
- Masic, Izet. (2016). H-index and How to Improve it?. Donald School Journal of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology. 10. 83-89. 10.5005/jp-journals-10009-1446.
- Stay abreast of the research happening in your area. Retrieved from https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/how-scopus-works/content
- Web of Science Journal Evaluation Process and Selection Criteria. Retrieved from https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/journal-evaluation-process-and-selection-criteria/
LibGuides: Web of Science platform: Web of Science Core Collection. Retrieved from https://clarivate.libguides.com/webofscienceplatform/woscc
Recent Comments