A citation analysis of Serbian Dental Journal using Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar

Abstract

Introduction. For a long time, The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now Thomson Scientific, Philadelphia, US) citation databases, available online through the Web of Science (WoS), had an unique position among bibliographic databases. The emergence of new citation databases, such as Scopus and Google Scholar (GS), call in question the dominance of WoS and the accuracy of bibliometric and citation studies exclusively based on WoS data. The aim of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in the received citation counts for Serbian Dental Journal (SDJ) found in WoS and Scopus databases, or whether GS results differed significantly from those obtained by WoS and Scopus, and whether GS could be an adequate qualitative alternative for commercial databases in the impact assessment of this journal. Material and Methods. The data regarding SDJ citation was collected in September 2010 by searching WoS, Scopus and GS databases. For further analysis, all relevant data of both, cited and citing articles, were imported into Microsoft Access? database. Results. One hundred and fifty-eight cited papers from SDJ and 249 received citations were found in the three analyzed databases. 74% of cited articles were found in GS, 46% in Scopus and 44% in WoS. The greatest number of citations (189) was derived from GS, while only 15% of the citations, were found in all three databases. There was a significant difference in the percentage of unique citations found in the databases. 58% originated from GS, while Scopus and WoS gave 6% and 4% unique citations, respectively. The highest percentage of databases overlap was found between WoS and Scopus (70%), while the overlap between Scopus and GS was 18% only. In case of WoS and GS the overlap was 17%. Most of the SDJ citations came from original scientific articles. Conclusion. WoS, Scopus and GS produce quantitatively and qualitatively different citation counts for SDJ articles. None of the examined databases can provide a comprehensive picture and it is necessary to take into account all three available sources.