←back to thread

412 points thepuppet33r | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.423s | source
Show context
random3 ◴[] No.42177658[source]
Fun fact about Google Scholar: it’s "free", but it’s just another soulless Google product - no clear strategy, no support, and a fragile proprietary dependency in what should be an open ecosystem. This creates inherent risks for the academic community. We need the equivalent of arXiv for Google Scholar
replies(8): >>42177738 #>>42178221 #>>42178675 #>>42179796 #>>42180759 #>>42181058 #>>42181064 #>>42183137 #
sitkack ◴[] No.42178675[source]
And that is semantic scholar, https://www.semanticscholar.org/
replies(4): >>42178841 #>>42179369 #>>42181081 #>>42189606 #
1. random3 ◴[] No.42189606[source]
I did a test across all Google Scholar alternatives I could find a few months ago. I got the same feelign like after Google Reader seized to exist. Literally nothing filled the gap.

My conclusion is that any such system needs to be "complete" or almost complete to be useful. By system, I mean a service or some handcrafted system where I could track anything. In all fairness, Sci-Hub partially fits the bill here and it's a big plus to society.

But the point is Google Scholar is complete in the sense that with a high probability I will find any paper I'm looking for along with reliable metadata. That's great, but the fact that they go above and beyond to prevent sharing that data is IMO backwards, against all academic research principles and this should raise questions within the research communities that rely on it.

replies(1): >>42189645 #
2. sitkack ◴[] No.42189645[source]
The biggest use of Google Scholar is in finding multiple sources or academic troves for a paper that is already accessible on semanticscholar.

There is no one stop shopping, you need to use all of them.