Academic search engines : a quantitative outlook / José Luis Ortega.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The most innovative searching services on the Web can sometimes prove challenging to use when conducting academic research and scientific activity. Academic Search Engines explores the current panorama of academic search engines through a quantitative approach that analyses the reliability and consistence of these services. The objective is to describe the main characteristics of these engines, to highlight their advantages and drawbacks, and to discuss the implications of these new products in the future of scientific communication and their impact on the research measurement and evaluation. Chapters include an introduction to academic search engines, their evolution and the challenges they face. Case studies examine particular search engines, followed by comparative analysis and concluding remarks, including future perspectives of academic search engines. Key Points: analyzes search engines by exclusively addressing the research community, reviews the most outstanding characteristics of each platform, discussing their significance to scholarly communication and research evaluation, introduces an original methodology based on a quantitative analysis of the covered data through the extensive use of crawlers and harvesters which allow going in depth into how these engines are working, describes academic search engines and their functionalities and discusses their use for the scientific community Book jacket.