TY - CONF

T1 - Do Google Scholar and Web of Science reflect women's and men's scholarly impact differently? A comparison of U.S. Researchers in sociology and economics

AU - Andersen, Jens Peter

AU - Nielsen, Mathias Wullum

PY - 2017/1/1

Y1 - 2017/1/1

N2 - Several studies have demonstrated differences in Google Scholars' and Web of Science's coverage of citing publications. In this paper, we examine whether citation data retrieved from Web of Science and Google Scholar reflect women's and men's scholarly impact differently. Our study is based on a sample of 200 randomly selected U.S. authors in economics- and sociology-related research areas. Our results illustrate noteworthy gender disparities in the per-paper citation rates across the two databases. In sociology, we find that women benefit more than men, when impact assessments are based on data from Google Scholar, while the opposite is the case in economics. If our results prove to be robust in a larger data-set, based on a more exhaustive matching of documents, they illustrate how the selection of data-sources can have consequences for how individual scholars are assessed, e.g. in tenure or grant review evaluations.

AB - Several studies have demonstrated differences in Google Scholars' and Web of Science's coverage of citing publications. In this paper, we examine whether citation data retrieved from Web of Science and Google Scholar reflect women's and men's scholarly impact differently. Our study is based on a sample of 200 randomly selected U.S. authors in economics- and sociology-related research areas. Our results illustrate noteworthy gender disparities in the per-paper citation rates across the two databases. In sociology, we find that women benefit more than men, when impact assessments are based on data from Google Scholar, while the opposite is the case in economics. If our results prove to be robust in a larger data-set, based on a more exhaustive matching of documents, they illustrate how the selection of data-sources can have consequences for how individual scholars are assessed, e.g. in tenure or grant review evaluations.

KW - Data accuracy and disambiguation

KW - Journals, databases and electronic publications

KW - Science policy and research assessment

KW - The application of informetrics on evaluation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85036608324&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Paper

AN - SCOPUS:85036608324

SP - 1156

EP - 1161

T2 - 16th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2017

Y2 - 16 October 2017 through 20 October 2017

ER -