Garcia-Perez, MA. 2010. Accuracy and Completeness of Publication and Citation Records in the Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar: A Case Study for the Computation of h Indices in Psychology. JASIST 61 (10): 2070-2085.

[Eugene Garfield]

Garcia-Perez, MA. 2010. Accuracy and Completeness of Publication and Citation 
Records in the Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar: A Case Study 
for the Computation of h Indices in Psychology. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN 
SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 61 (10): 2070-2085.

Author Full Name(s): Garcia-Perez, Miguel A.
Language: English
Document Type: Article

KeyWords Plus: JOURNAL IMPACT FACTORS; OF-SCIENCE; SOCIAL-SCIENCES; 
RESEARCH OUTPUT; HIRSCH-INDEX; SCOPUS; PERFORMANCE; REFERENCES; 
INDICATORS; AUTHORS

Abstract: Hirsch's h index is becoming the standard measure of an individual's 
research accomplishments. The aggregation of individuals' measures is also the 
basis for global measures at institutional or national levels. To investigate 
whether the h index can be reliably computed through alternative sources of 
citation records, the Web of Science (WoS), PsycINFO and Google Scholar (GS) 
were used to collect citation records for known publications of four Spanish 
psychologists. Compared with WoS, PsycINFO included a larger percentage of 
publication records, whereas GS outperformed WoS and PsycINFO in this 
respect. Compared with WoS, PsycINFO retrieved a larger number of citations 
in unique areas of psychology, but it retrieved a smaller number of citations in 
areas that are close to statistics or the neurosciences, whereas GS retrieved 
the largest numbers of citations in all cases. Incorrect citations were scarce in 
Wos (0.3%), more prevalent in PsycINFO (1.1%), and overwhelming in GS 
(16.5%). All platforms retrieved unique citations, the largest set coming from 
GS. WoS and PsycINFO cover distinct areas of psychology unevenly, thus 
applying different penalties on the h index of researches working in different 
fields. Obtaining fair and accurate h indices required the union of citations 
retrieved by all three platforms.

Addresses: Univ Complutense, Dept Metodol, Fac Psicol, Madrid 28223, Spain
Reprint Address: Garcia-Perez, MA, Univ Complutense, Dept Metodol, Fac 
Psicol, Campus Somosaguas, Madrid 28223, Spain.

E-mail Address: miguel at psi.ucm.es
ISSN: 1532-2882
DOI: 10.1002/asi.21372
fulltext: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21372/abstract