Google Scholar with Robin Cicchetti

This week's blog post features Guest blogger Robin Cicchetti explaining the ins-and-outs of Google Scholar!

Do you ever get frustrated with web searches?

When your students do research do they come back with unimpressive sources?
Even when using advanced search strategies the Internet can feel like a barren place as you paw through endless pages of returns!

Skimming the Surface

That’s because Google and other current search engines are only skimming the surface web (Goodman, 2015). The algorithms that direct web crawlers identify metadata through hyperlinks and then index the site. They don’t have access to the proprietary content that lives in the deep web which consists of:

• Results of database queries
• Subscription-only information and other password-protected data
• Pages that are not linked to by any other page
• Technically limited content, such as that requiring CAPTCHA technology
• Text content that exists outside of conventional http:// or https:// protocols

The Internet that we access using typical search engines is made up of only .03% of overall web content (OEDb, 2015 and Goodman, 2015).  

That's why it is important to know how to use database alternative search engines, like Google Scholar.

Access to Academic Information

Google Scholar web crawlers work differently because they target university repositories, scholarly publications, academic publishers, professional societies, and other scholarly publications to find articles, books, abstracts and court opinions (About Google Scholar).

It also allows a user to create a personalized library of scholarly materials. I really like the library section of Google Scholar where you can build a personal collection of articles and create and assign labels.
A side-by-side look at a search on “close reading strategies” on Google and Google Scholar reveals the following:

Table 1

Comparison of search returns

The Google search returns aren't bad, and there are certainly some good sources from reputable sites, but everything you can access on Google is part of the free, surface we.  Google Scholar helps us peer into the deep web and see material that would otherwise be hidden behind paywalls.

If we analyze a search return from Google Scholar you can see the following:

Table 2

Analysis of a return

1. By clicking the " icon, you can grab the citation and copy/paste it into your document, Noodletools, or whatever citation platform you are using.

 2.  You can see how many others have cited this source in academic publishing, providing a sense of its value/trustworthiness in the field. By clicking the “cited by” option you can access the articles that cited the one in the search return and investigate the scholarly discussion in multiple journals from experts in the field.

3.  Related articles allow you to drill down deeper into the search and uncover additional scholarly resources.

If the article is freely available as a PDF you will see this icon to the right of the search return:

If it is JSTOR then you can click and login using the CCHS credentials (ccrsd/patriots). If it is another organization you can usually get the article, but you may still hit a paywall. If there is no PDF icon then you don’t have access to the article.

Scale the Pay Wall!

However, I can get it for you! The Boston Public Library (BPL) is the official library of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I am able to submit requests for articles and books through ILLiad (Inter-library loan). BPL has access to the scholarly databases that we can’t provide. They also have a vast print repository and will send a librarian to remote storage areas with a scanner to scan the article. The turn around is generally 1-2 days although we did have a request that took almost two weeks because they had to contact a library in India, and they had to scan it from their print repository. Pretty cool!

Thoughts from colleagues:

Intrigued?  Read the feedback below from our colleagues who have been using Google Scholar:

Ryan Palmer   

"Google Scholar played a huge role in my graduate studies as I needed to search through peer-reviewed, academic journals for relevant material. I would often look up journal articles to better explain difficult topics, and while the database available at my university was comprehensive, the Google search engine is more powerful and finds more sources. I could find any reference I needed using Google Scholar, which brought me directly to the original article. I have tried to get my students to do the same as we find evidence to support or reject information they find through social media, and while the content of the articles is often beyond their understanding, they are now finding useful information in the abstract of peer-reviewed articles - a huge step up from Wikipedia!"

Amy Byron  

"Tasking students with finding scientifically relevant and accurate articles is difficult with the volumes of information across the internet. To more closely approximate higher-level research, we in the science department begin teaching students what constitutes an acceptable source, versus an unacceptable source. Google Scholar is very helpful in finding not only quality articles, but also articles that cite the article of interest. In this way, students can look at an entire body of research with relative ease."

Bibliography

Goodman, Marc. “Most of the web is invisible to Google. Here’s what it contains.” Popular Science. Last modified April 1, 2015. Accessed March 29, 2018. https://www.popsci.com/dark-web-revealed#page-3.

Google Scholar, ed. "About Google Scholar." Google Scholar. Accessed March 29,
2018. https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html.

Open Education Database, ed. “The ultimate guide to the invisible web.” OEDb. Last modified 2018. Accessed March 29, 2018. http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/invisible-web/.