Limitations of Google Scholar (still in beta testing) are beginning to appear. For example:
- Google Scholar documentation (Search Engine Watch)
- Google Scholarly (Free Pint)
Main messages are that documentation is lacking on what's in the database (not always "scholarly") and that students may bypass established databases containing peer reviewed papers.
Hi Pat,
ReplyDeleteI just put Google Scholar to the test in a couple papers I am writing for school (on quality systems training, not transfusion medicine specifically). I didn't find any dubious (i.e. non-academic :) ) sources, but I did discover a list of new sources that I normally don't encounter using my familiar technique of searching for papers in Journals of the Trusted Kind in various databases. Most of these were written by reputable scholars who published directly to the web - sometimes their own webpages - as opposed to peer-reviewed publications. Google scholar is a great idea but very much beta I think, and I'll keep watching for updates on your blog.
Thanks!
Shanta