The Most Cited Publications of Cartographers in Google Scholar

Abstract

Nowadays, three most popular citation databases are Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar (GS). In contrast to WoS and Scopus, GS is freely accessible. Comparing the three citation databases, WoS and Scopus have precisely defined and published criteria for selection of sources and papers from these sources. Google’s policy is quite non-transparent. In recent times, however, scientists have been increasingly citing data from GS in addition to data on presence and citations in databases WoS and Scopus. In the conclusion of a comparative analysis of number of citations of papers published in the Croatian Medical Journal in 2005 and 2006 according to the three citation databases, it is emphasized that GS may serve as an alternative bibliometric measure of citation frequency (Šember et al. 2010). An investigation of the number of citations for scientists from the fields of library and information sciences for the period 1996–2005, according to the three mentioned citation databases, has shown, among other things, that citations collected by GS are very useful. They are not of the same quality and significance as those from WoS and Scopus, but they point at a broader international echo of the cited papers than results obtained using WoS and Scopus (Meho, Yang 2007).