Peer learning – Google Scholar Citations

This afternoon one of those serendipitous conversations happened that allowed me to add another online profile to my digital presence; Google Scholar now offer individual academic profiles that update automatically, can be edited and keep track of an individual’s publications, and their collaborations. It took about 15 minutes to set up my profile and that included finding a new image to go on the web – my Harris garden photo is now about 8 years old – how good to stay looking young 🙂

A single profile from Google Scholar Citataions

A single profile from Google Scholar Citations

Other colleagues on Google Scholar Citations include Jim Dunwell who introduced me to the system, and Liam Mc Guffin who works in an area with very highly cited papers. I’m pleased to see Pat Parslow but surprised Shirley Williams is not there – I’ve finally beaten our super-techie to a new platform 🙂 [not for long! Shirley now has a profile. I love the photo – bringing glamour back in to science :-)].

Google Scholar Profiles even tracks down and links to publicly available copies of the publications.  It seems to me that much of the work done in our Centaur system is provided here without the need for a local infrastructure to support it.

About Alastair Culham

A professional botanist and biologist with an interest in promoting biological knowledge and awareness to all.
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9 Responses to Peer learning – Google Scholar Citations

  1. Shirley Williams says:

    The trouble with a common name is that data isn’t as clear as it might be for me.
    So I left it on the “to do” list.
    I’ll have to return – I don’t want too many people beating me!

    • I thought my lead would be slim 🙂 There are pros and cons to an uncommon name vs a common name when searching on the web. Most of the hits using my name do pick up me although the Culham Laboratory (sadly nothing to do with me) features heavily if my first name isn’t used. I can see you have a challenge!

      • I’ve fought my way through what Google has attributed to me and thrown out those that aren’t mine.
        Interestingly there was one from a “Shirley Williams” from Singapore who I have actually met.
        So i am now public – but lagging Alastair on the citations counts

  2. Leigh Blount says:

    I do like the idea of creating an “academic prozone” similar to analysis tools the premiership use!

    With KIS data soon to be appearing on all university undergraduate course pages giving users a food label/ traffic light system to quickly glance at employability, student satisfaction etc. it looks like its going to get more competitive at every level.

    Brian Kelly wrote an interesting blog post about this subject fairly recently here – http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/learning-is-performance-performance-can-and-will-be-analysed/

    I’m going to register “comparetheacademic.com” before anyone else gets to it, and come up with a give away to rivalmeerkat toys.

  3. Annette Haworth says:

    Very interesting post, Alistair. Google sure provides some excellent services. But should we worry that Google will soon manage (?own) all the world’s information?

  4. Google is providing large numbers of useful resources to the scientific community and the payment they are taking is knowledge of our activities. I rather think it is like the old fashioned telephone system with an operator connecting calls and listening in. Google is the village postmistress on a very large scale. Are we worse off for sharing with Google? I really don’t know yet. I do know that I could always choose to change my professional name – just as actors have stage names. If I change my name then Google have lost the link. I can readily picture a future where we all have a real name and one or more Pen names to allow us both privacy and publicity.
    My latest Google discovery is Google Refine – a great tool!

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