Scopus and google scholar publication profiles of Bharat Ratna C.N.R. Rao: A comparison for better assessment of individuals

Abstract

Publications and citations are extensively used for assessing individuals for awards, promotions, accreditations, allocating funds etc. The demands for assessment may be based on single database viz. Scopus or Web of Science which are commonly used for eliciting citations. Google Scholar which also gives citation data can also be used for these purposes or at least for self-assessment. In certain cases, significant differences are observed from Scopus or Web of Science data when Google Scholar is used. The coverage of these databases may be the reason for such a difference. In some cases, documents covered in Scopus or Web of Science have noteworthy increase in citations in Google Scholar. The present work made an endeavor to explore this fact by taking a case study of publications and citation data of Dr C.N.R. Rao, a prominent Indian researcher in Materials Chemistry and Solid State Chemistry and perhaps the Indian with highest number of publications. The data from Scopus and Google Scholar are compared and presented how the assessment is affected by taking single database for the purpose.