Bibliometrics Toolkit Google Scholar (GS) is one of three central tools (the others being ISI and Scopus) used to generate bibliometrics for researchers and for published research material Publish or Perish (PoP) works with Google Scholar data to automatically generate bibliometric metrics and analysis Google Scholar provides a very large data source for bibliometric analysis, but there is no information available as to precisely what is indexed in the database Website: Last edited: 07 Mar 2011 Google Scholar and Publish or Perish Google Scholar Publish or Perish About Google Scholar Google Scholar (GS) is a specialised Google search engine designed to retrieve scholarly data on the web It was launched in beta version in November 2004 and is still in its beta or test phase GS searches publisher websites, pre-print repositories, university websites, books, technical reports etc for scholarly information Some Advantages of GS for Bibliometrics A free alternative to fee-based citation databases like Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) Covers a diverse range of sources which can lead to higher citation counts for some articles Includes material not indexed by other citation databases. As a result, it can be better for disciplines poorly served by its competitors Includes books and this is advantageous for disciplines where monographs are a principle research outlet, for example, in the arts and humanities Better coverage of many conference proceedings than its competitors Provides citation counts for each document that it returns. You can click on the citation count to view the individual citing documents making up this total Some Disadvantages of GS for Bibliometrics Does not provide a list of the journals and other material that it covers Does not indicate the timescale covered Covers some non-research level material e.g. course reading lists, student projects etc Poorer coverage of print-only material Even the advanced search options are quite limited:  There is no way to distinguish between authors who have the same initials  It is impossible to conduct a comprehensive search for a journal which has various title abbreviations Results often contain duplicates of the same article (usually as pre-prints and post-prints) or even false hits which have to be merged or removed manually About Publish or Perish Publish or Perish (PoP) is a piece of software which is free to download from the web at It works with Google Scholar data to generate metrics for authors, journals and articleshttp:// The software was developed by Anne-Wil Harzing, Professor in International Management at the University of Melbourne As PoP uses GS data, the advantages and disadvantage of using GS should be kept in mind when analysing PoP results. PoP is limited to the same search functionality as GS Using PoP you cannot view groups of journals together or categories of journals as in Scopus and ISI PoP results can be copied into Windows applications like Excel or saved as text files for further analysis Results lists should be checked for errors and false hits deselected Useful Metrics in Publish or Perish Example An author search for PoP creator, Anne-Wil Harzing The metrics Results list About PoP Metrics Whether you are looking for authors, journals or articles, PoP returns the same list of metrics The key metric provided for both authors and journals is the h-index The h-index is currently the most popular metric used to assess a researcher’s output The GS/PoP h-index for journals is a useful alternative to the popular journal impact factor of ISI. As GS covers material that ISI doesn’t, the h-index for journals might be most useful for disciplines that are not well served by ISI Key Metrics in PoP Total number of papers Total number of citations Avg. no. of citations per paper Avg. no. of citations per author Avg. no. of papers per author Avg. no of citations per year Hirsch's h-index Egghe's g-index The contemporary h-index The age-weighted citation rate Individual h-index (2 types) Number of authors per paper