Research on Academic Use of Google

Academic Use of Google Tools for Research in the Collegiate Setting

Abstract

The development of increasingly sophisticated search tools has allowed students to have access to a broadening range of research tools. Tools such as the general-purpose Google search engine have become increasingly common, and special-purpose tools, such as Google Books (which indexes full-text or partial-text books in all subjects) and Google Scholar (which indexes scholarly articles and books as well as monographs, dissertations, and patents) have proliferated. This paper discusses how students use Google and related tools in academic research settings. Some of the advantages identified for these tools include ease of use and simple interface, which reduces the learning curve and allows students to use existing research skills. This is seen in particular contrast to traditional database search tools, which have varied and complex search interfaces A major disadvantage of these search tools is that they do not differentiate search results based on academic rigor or quality, which means that students cannot rely on findings to produce reliable sources. While this is a skill that is expected to be learned during the educational process, it still represents a challenge for students, particularly those that are just learning the research process. This report discusses the use of Google tools, advantages and disadvantages, comparison of Google tools and traditional library gateway search, and ways to improve user capability for Google and Google Scholar use.

Academic Use of Google Tools for Research in the Collegiate Setting

There are an increasingly broad range of tools available online for students to use in their research efforts. Some of the most commonly used tools include the Google academic research toolkit, including the general-purpose Google search engine as well as specialist tools Google Books and Google Scholar. The Google search tools are part of a growing category of free abstracting and indexing tools that offer access to scholarly and other materials via the Web, in direct competition with proprietary databases such as Informaworld or Ebscohost. This category of free tools includes tools such as Cat.inist, CiNii, ERIC, and PubMed, which each has specific language and coverage specifications. There are also a growing number of proprietary services, such as JSTOR and CSA Illumina, which offer bibliographic information to searchers through Google Scholar or other sites even for searchers that do not have subscription access. Google Books has a somewhat more limited coverage area, due to the nature of book digitization and copyright issues, but still provides a range of books for online search.

The three Google tools profiled in this essay offer a number of advantages over more rigid database search engines that have traditionally been used, including flexible plain-text search and a ranking that indicates general importance. These tools also have the advantage of being previously known to students because of their common interface and ubiquity, which makes learning effective use significantly easier. Students tend to use these tools as an initial screening mechanism as well as a source of deep searching. However, this does not mean that these tools are free of challenges for the academic user. Some of the particular challenges that may be faced include differentiation of source quality and, especially with Google Books, the availability of the materials online. However, the tools generally compare favorably with the more complex academic databases, and students may not face significantly greater challenges in discernment of good resources than in other databases. This essay discusses the use of Google and related specialist academic tools in the undergraduate academic environment, focusing on recent research that has addressed the problem of search and access in the university population. It also discusses ways that students can be taught to use Google and related tools more effectively.

About the Tools

The three main tools that will be examined in this research include the general-purpose Google Search Engine, Google Books, and Google Scholar. Although the front ends of these tools are actually very similar (a property that is likely to improve the user experience due to reduction in cognitive load), there are several important differences in indexing as well as in material searched that affect how they may be used. There are also as will be discussed in more detail, significant differences in indexing, coverage, and quality of metadata between these three databases, which may change the utility of the specialist databases.

Google Search Engine

The Google search engine is the core of the Google toolkit. The Google search engine is a ranked, indexed search engine that uses constant web traversal processes to generate an index of available sites. These sites are then ranked according to the number of inward links in order to determine which are most likely to be relevant given a specific search term. The search engine's main qualities include relevance, freshness, and speed, all of which help it maintain an updated view of the Web environment. The Google search terms are flexible, and can include a plain-text WYSYWIG search as well as a field-based ("advanced") search (Google, 2011). The basic search functionality and front end is used in the specialist academic search engines, which prioritize specific types of information.

Google Books

Google Books is a specialist search engine that focuses on digitized print books and e-books. Google Books indexes book content, allowing users to search by exact phrase, keyword, or other ways detailed above. All books entered into Google Books include a reference page detailing information such as author, publisher and title, as well as identified reviews, related books, and other information about the book. Additionally, depending on the copyright status of the book and publisher or author permission, the Google Books search may include a snippet view (which displays selected phrases relevant to the search key); a limited preview (which makes available some number of pages of the book); or a full view of the book.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar uses the same search functionality and search front end as the generalist Google database and Google books, but it covers different types of resources. The main focus of Google Scholar is on academic or scholarly sources, including scholarly journals and dissertations, books, court opinions, conference proceedings, agency and organizational reports, as well as other types of sources that are relevant to the academic search environment. In addition to other ranking techniques, Google Scholar uses criteria including the frequency and recentness of citations in order to determine relevance to the search term. Google Scholar can also be used in a library setting to cross-link references to full-text document repositories and databases, offering a means for searching multiple databases with a user interface students and other database users are already familiar with (Google Scholar, 2011).

Use of Google Search Tools in the Academic Setting

The tools profiled above have obvious advantages for use in an academic setting, given that they were designed for this use and are technically very well supported. However, this does not answer the question of how (and how well) students actually make use of the Google toolkit, or how effective these tools are in comparison to other academic databases. Major topics of discussion include frequency and patterns of use among students; comparison of Google search tools to more traditional library databases and search tools; and challenges to the use of Google search tools. It also compares the use profile of a traditional library gateway with a simplified portal using a Google-like federated search, in order to identify differences in usability between these types of sites. Finally, the research has been studied to determine what practices librarians and educators can use to help students search effectively.

Frequency and Patterns of Use Among Students

The tools that are profiled are very commonly used among students, although Google general search is far more commonly used than Google Scholar or Google Books. Google and Google Scholar are two of the most commonly used research and information seeking tools logged in a five-year study of undergraduate biomedical students that took place from 2005 to 2009. The other three most commonly used information-seeking sites included Wikipedia, the university library site, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) site. (The frequency of NIH site usage can be attributed to the demographic of the student population studied, as the NIH site indexes biomedical and biological research). The frequency of information seeking sites has risen over time; students in 2005 used information-seeking sites in approximately 65% of their sessions, while by 2009 they were using information-seeking sites in approximately 85% of browsing sessions. The most commonly used information-seeking tool was the Google general search site (just over 30% of sessions in 2009), while Google Scholar was one of the least-used sites (totaling only about 2% of sessions). In contrast, the library search site was accessed in just fewer than 10% of sessions during this period (Judd & Kennedy, 2010). Thus, the use of both Google and Google Scholar are common in the undergraduate setting, although Google is far more common than Google Scholar. (The authors of this study did not consider the use of Google Books.)

While Google and Google Scholar have been shown to be common in university settings, the use of e-books, including Google Books, is also increasingly important. Shelburne's (2009) study of library users and their perceptions of e-books has shown increasing acceptance of e-books including Google Books. Users view e-books as a way to reduce cost for textbooks, increase convenience and availability, and improve access to popular resources (Shelburne, 2009). Google Books was seen as particularly advantageous in this study because of the search facility, which allowed users to easily identify books that are potentially related to their search topics. One participant in Shelburne's study said, "Internet access, I can still return to that source. Some e-books I've looked at on Google books have been quite amazing for other reasons though-they allow me to do a full-text search for key terms and they bring me precisely to the location where that information is (Shelburne, 2009, p. 63)." However, it should be noted that this student was a graduate student with a focus in 19th century literature; thus, the copyright restrictions would not be relevant to this particular student's area of focus). However, this was not seen as a complete advantage; in particular, the limited preview feature of Google Books was seen as a deterrent to use, because students could not extract the needed information from the online preview. Thus, although the use of Google Books was useful, it was perhaps not as useful as other types of e-books, which allow for full display.

There can be a number of patterns derived in the use of Google search tools, some of which are positive and some of which are negative. One of the main detrimental patterns of use for Google generally, including Google Scholar, is the presentation of results. In particular, the relevance ranking of results mean that users become conditioned to finding their desired results on the first few pages, and the majority of results followed come from the top ten listing. This lends a certain shallowness to the search patterns, in which potentially more important results are overlooked because of the mechanistic search process. However, there are also positive indicators in the use of Google and related Web sites. A recent study indicated that students do tend to use these search engine tools before library searches, which would seem to confirm that students select their search methods for convenience rather than for reliability (Biddix, Chung, & Park, 2011). However, further study in this area demonstrates that this is not the case. Instead, students that use search engines generally indicate that they understand the complications of research through online search engine. Furthermore, the process of online search serves as a pre-research process rather than the final search phase, with students using online research tools to identify potential directions for inquiry and resources related to resources they already have knowledge of. For example, students may search for works related to the works assigned for a course in order to expand their available resources, or identify resources they could then seek out from the library. Importantly, the issue of credibility was noted in this research; Google Scholar was seen as valuable because of its citation counts, which allowed students to determine overall acceptability of a given resource in a way that is not commonly facilitated by library catalogues or other academic sources. Thus, the use of Google Scholar and related Web sites is more complex than it seems at first glance; students do not use the tools uncritically, but instead as a gateway for future research.

Advantages of Google Search Tools

There are a number of advantages of Google search tools for academic research over other academic search sites. One of the major advantages is the speed of informational access and ability to find information that is desired. One research project compared the search functionality of Google with two academic Web sites developed for use by undergraduate students (including the Australian Monash University site and the Omani Dhofar University site. This research compared the search sites based on benchmark criteria for search functionality and ease of use, such as the availability of a search navigation bar, page descriptions, and indexes and site maps. This research showed that Google met all criteria for effective searching (with the exception of A-Z searching, which is not used due to the richness of other sources) and that the coordinating, hierarchal site design, site index, and global navigation of the site improved the navigability and utility of the site. Overall, this research indicated that the Google search site was a more effective search tool than either of the custom search tools designed for the university Web sites; this was considered to be important because of the importance of search to the user experience. Given these findings, it is clear that one of the major benefits of the Google site (including both the main site and the academic specialist sites, which use the same site structure and hierarchal layout) is the ease of use of the site and the ease of navigation and finding the results the user wants.

Another major benefit of Google search tools is the depth and breadth of coverage offered. A study of Google Scholar conducted in 2010 showed that the database covered 98% to 100% of scholarly journals currently available (Chen, 2010b). This coverage included open indexed journals as well as journals from proprietary publisher databases such as Emerald, JSTOR, and other such databases. This coverage was gained by Google entering into partnerships with the proprietary database owners, who have made available their sites for search (although if users do not have subscription or other access they will still be directed to the single-copy purchase functionality most databases have) (Chen, 2010b). The study also found that the Google Scholar search collapses results and performs de-duplication, which reduces the irrelevant results load; this is not a described feature of the search engine and so the precise algorithm it uses is uncertain, but Chen (2010b) observed that available free full-text results were commonly given the priority position in de-duplicated results, although these results were dynamic and changed frequently. This represents a significant improvement over the tool's functionality in 2005, which Chen (2010b) compared current results to; improvements included increased indexing rates (from as low as 30% in 2005), increased speed, and improved relevance indexing. Google Scholar is also almost infallible in retrieving articles when given the title of the article, a significant benefit particularly for cross-service searching. However, despite this increased coverage there is still a significant portion of the Web that is not indexed by Google (either the general or specialist sites); these sites remain out of sight of Google search users.

It is a common assumption that the use of Google and Google Scholar does not offer context for returned citations that would allow users to determine the relative value of the research. However, this is not necessarily the case, because of the citation count facility (Kousha, Thelwall, & Rezaie, 2010). Analysis has shown that online citation counts can be a reliable impact factor. The impact factor, a metric that allows for comparison of the frequency of citations of a given article (or author), can be used as a relatively reliable indicator of how well accepted a given article or other piece of research is. However, in terms of impact factor analysis, Google Scholar does not necessarily perform better than competitors. Although there are a large number of sources that are indexed in Google Scholar that are not indexed in competitors Scopus or Web of Science (WoS), this does not result in significantly increased accuracy in impact ratings. Interestingly, impact factors from books have been increasing steadily since the introduction of Google Books, which indicates that this may have increased the scholarly use of books due to increased accessibility and ease of use (Kousha, Thelwall, & Rezaie, 2010). As with any other impact factor, interpreting these figures does take some degree of skill, and it is not immediately obvious to a novice user, but this is one way in which experienced users can infer relative importance of sources.

Disadvantages of Use of Google Search Tools

Although the Google search toolkit has a number of advantages, there are also some disadvantages that can be seen in the research. One known issue is the problem of coverage. Although coverage has been considerably better in recent periods (Chen, 2010b), there are some areas of coverage and time periods where Google Scholar coverage is less good than that of specialist databases. There are also some other problems with the indexing on the site, including a limitation of 60 characters in the advanced search option for publication name; limitation of the search results (for example, some journals withheld their most recent publications) and reduction of journals from the number of total journals indexed by the general Google search engine.

While Google Scholar is generally highly refined, Google Books is much less so, and there are still some significant flaws in the indexing and searching facilities. One of the most obvious issues is the problem of copyright, which limits the amount of text available to the online searcher (regardless of whether or not the institution offering the search owns a copy of the book). In particular, the scanning and metadata entry project, primarily driven by library participants, was undertaken without the permission of copyright holders. This is still an issue that is working its way through the courts, and a settlement has not yet been achieved that would allow for the digitizing of orphaned works or appropriate recompense to rights holders. However, there are other problems with the tool, including misclassification, scanning and OCR processing, incorrect dating, and assorted other metadata errors that reduce the searchability of the database (Dougherty, 2010). Dougherty (2010) indicated that some of these errors are likely to be related to Google's commercial orientation and existing classifications of books in existing search databases. These errors require, in most cases, manual correction in order to fix misclassification and other metadata errors; there is no current organized project ongoing to make these improvements. Thus, although Google Books is a useful tool that is under technological development, it is not as advanced in terms of its usefulness to academic researchers as is Google Scholar.

Traditional Gateway or Google?

Site usability studies have called into question whether the Google model of search is inherently better than other search models for student use. One such study compared the Moraine Valley Community College Library gateway site to a site that included a Google-like search box as its central component. The authors found that there was mixed evidence on the effectiveness of Google-style federated search, with some previous research finding that it was highly effective and others finding that it was not effective at all. Some of the disadvantages of Google sites in terms of usability included a large amount of information (which was likely to cause cognitive overload particularly in inexperienced users) and the lack of guidance for search (as the site structure presumes that users have existing search skills) However, simplicity, clarity, and ease of use, as well as having a single user interface, were seen as possible improvements of Google over traditional databases. However, a usability study comparing a traditional gateway site with a Google-style centralized search site found advantages and disadvantages to both. While the users generally had success in searching with the traditional gateway site, they also had difficulty distinguishing between resources (for example, telling the difference between on-site library holdings and WorldCat records), determining which resources they should select for search, and interpreting search results effectively (Swanson & Green, 2011). In contrast, while few users had difficulty using the centralized search site, they continued to have problems with interpretation of sources (Swanson & Green, 2011).

Helping Students Search Effectively

The research on Google as well as other search tools has a number of recommendations for helping students search effectively using Google tools as well as other tools. A site usability study demonstrated that users, particularly newer college students, need guidance on what type of research resources should be selected; they also found that users were unlikely to consult FAQs, tutorials, or other informational pages in order to learn this information. Given these limitations, the effectiveness of either a traditional portal site or a Google-based search site is likely to be reduced. One approach to overcoming this problem is using external training for students in order to develop research skills. For example, Chong (2010) described a project in which blogging was used as a tool to introduce students to academic research and sourcing, providing access to skills and knowledge about specific sources that students could utilize in their own research. This project relied on students describing their research process, which was then critiqued by professors and fellow students. The use of tools such as blogging allows students to cooperatively learn the use of tools including Google as well as traditional academic search tools in ways that are not inherent to the tools themselves. This overcomes one of the major problems with the use of Google tools, the assumption of critical knowledge regarding the reliability of sources and ability to reduce search sets effectively. The use of external search training is also a trending recommendation from other authors. For example, researchers studying the use of Google by students recommended several means of instructing students on how to use Google and Google Scholar, such as a drop-in training module for WebCT or other CMS and in-class training devoted to critical use of Google and related tools. Another study has found that students are willing to play learning games that teach library and research skills, even in cases where there is no other motivation for these games (Markey, et al., 2009). Thus, there are a variety of approaches that can be used to help students learn more effective use of online search as well as library resources.

There are clearly a number of ways to teach students how to use Google and Google Scholar more effectively, along with other methods of online search. However, there is also room for simplification of other search tools offered by libraries in order to improve the usability of these tools (Biddix, Chung, & Park, 2011). In particular, simplifying the search structure and interface of databases such as JSTOR and providing a centralized search facility is likely to increase student willingness to use these tools as well as Google.

Conclusion

Google search tools are among some of the fastest-growing online databases of academic research and information available. These tools have a number of advantages over traditional tools, including advanced indexing as well as user interface advantages. Overall, these databases see a higher level of use as compared to other academic research tools also available to students, possibly due to the students' existing familiarity with the tools as well as other factors such as indexing completeness. However, there are still a number of challenges that need to be overcome in the academic use of Google tools, particularly in identifying appropriate sources. Analysis of the Google academic search tools indicates that these tools are well designed for academic research and, with some training in how to generate appropriate results and critically screen results for academic rigor, these tools can provide a valuable support for student research practices.

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