A comparison of citation coverage of traditional and web citation databases in medical science.

This study aimed to analyse the quantitative similarities between traditional citations coverage (Web of Science and Scopus) and citations taken from the Web (Google Scholar), specifically targeting articles from 23 Open Access ISI-indexed journals within the field of General and Internal Medical Science published in 2007. This method enables us to comprehend the number of citations that exist on the Web and their efficiency as an important source for Medical Science research evaluation. More specifically, the correlation tests are used as an indirect approach to assess the extent of the relationship between traditional and Web-based citation coverage. It also investigates the percentage of overlap between conventional and Web citations databases in the selected journals. The findings show that the Web incorporates more citation data targeting general and internal medical journal articles that cannot be traced by traditional citation databases. The significant association between both conventional citations databases and Google Scholar found in this study, suggest that both the traditional and Web-based citation database are possible tools for measuring identical aspects, however, Web-based citations have the capability to be used for effective and accurate evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]