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Scholarly Profiles

Scholarly Profiles

There are a variety of web sites that build profiles of researchers. These sites may allow researchers to display their bibliographic data or may act as social networking.

Note that these profiles require a level of manual data entry, such as with ORCID and Google Scholar. Scopus IDs and WoS ResearcherIDs, it is advisable that authors review their profiles and report any inaccuracies.

 

Bibliographic Databases

Bibliographic databases provide the data needed for bibliometric analysis and to build author profiles. These are organized, and sometimes curated, indexes of research. They do not contain full-text materials, but rather compile records and metadata about them. Note that data from bibliographic databases are limited only to what they index and may not provide the whole story about a researcher or knowledge area.
Some databases are subject specific, or may index content that skews in favour of certain subjects. 
The major multidisciplinary bibliographic databases used for bibliometrics are:

  • Scopus: Scopus is a subscription-based database from Elsevier that indexes primarily research in STEM. It indexes peer-reviewed research outputs.
  • Web of Science: Web of Science is a subscription-based database from Clarivate. It provides access to several indexes, such as the Science Citation Index and the Social Sciences Citation Index.
  • OpenAlex: OpenAlex is a free and open index developed by OurResearch. It aggregates data from Crossref, DOAJ, ROR, web scrapes for content, and more.
  • Google Scholar: Google Scholar is a free search portal provided by Google that can be used to search for a variety of types of outputs, such as journal articles, books, theses, etc. It is known for its wide scope of materials and subjects.

Databases, such as these, provide access to metadata such as the following indicators as well as other valuable information.

  • Article and journal titles
  • Author affiliations
  • Publisher data
  • Number of citations and links to other cited materials
     

 

Contacts & Support

Julie Morris
Bibliometrics Librarian