[Sigmetrics] About 2016 Google Scholar Metrics

[Emilio Delgado López-Cózar]

Dear colleagues, Google Scholar Metrics 2016 was released on July
14th. Like we have been doing since GSM was first launched, we have
written a brief and cursory analysis discussing the main changes,
features, and limitations of this new edition. You may access it from
the following link: 

http://dx.doi.org10.13140/RG.2.1.1496.4724 [1]


This new edition covers documents published between 2011 and 2015. The
main differences respect to last year's version are: 

- the inclusion
of five additional language rankings (Russian, Korean, Polish, Ukrainian
& Indonesian) and the removal of two language rankings: Italian, and
Dutch. 

- the removal of many Working Papers and Discussion Papers
series in Business, Economics & Management: i.e CEPR Discussion Papers
(h5-index: 112), IZA Discussion Papers (h5-index: 82). 

The number of
journals that are displayed in the predefined category and language
rankings is 5,734, although GSM covers many more journals, as well as
repositories (arxiv) and conferences (mostly in Computer Science) which
can be found by using the search box. Almost 9200 journals were found in
the previous version (period 2010-2014) when searching journals in the
areas of Social Sciences and Humanities. 

Since there haven't been any
structural changes in this new version, the limitations outlined in
previous years still persist. GSM is a hybrid product
(bibliographic-bibliometric) which offers limited information: two
indicators: h5-index and h5-median, the documents which contribute to
the journal's h5-index, and the bibliographic information of the citing
documents. It is also closed (it can't be customized by the user) and
simple (you can get to any part of the product in a few clicks). For
these reason, we still believe it is a "low-cost" bibliometric tool, and
suggest a list of features it should implement so we can stop
considering it as such. 

However, this product allows user to identify
the most influential journals in each scientific discipline, published
in any country and language. It offers bibliometric information for
journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as Engineering,
and journals with a national scope which are not covered by traditional
databases. Furthemore, the stability in its indicators through the years
supports its ability to measure the impact of scientific journals, an
impact that is not limited to the scientific environment. 

Thank you,
and I hope you find it of interest.Thank you, and I hope you find it of
interest. 

Emilio Delgado López-Cózar 

EC3 Research Group: Evaluación
de la Ciencia y de la Comunicación Científica
Facultad de Comunicación y
Documentación
Universidad de
Granada
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=es&user=kyTHOh0AAAAJ
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emilio_Delgado_Lopez-Cozar
http://googlescholardigest.blogspot.com.es

Dubitando
ad veritatem pervenimus (Cicerón, De officiis. A. 451...)
Contra data
non argumenta
A fructibus eorum cognoscitis eos (San Mateo 7, 16)



Links:
------
[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.1496.4724
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