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Can the impact of grey literature be assessed? An investigation of UK government publications cited by articles and books

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew S. Bickley

    (University of Wolverhampton)

  • Kayvan Kousha

    (University of Wolverhampton)

  • Michael Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

Abstract

Grey literature encompasses a range of relatively informal textual outputs that are not indexed in citation databases. Although they are usually ignored in research evaluations, it is important to develop methods to assess their impact so that their contributions can be recognised, and successful types of grey literature can be encouraged. This article investigates the extent to which 97,150 UK government publications were cited by Scopus articles and Google Books during 2013–2017 in eleven broad subject areas. A method was used to semi-automatically extract citations to the UK government publications from articles and books with high recall and precision. The results showed that Scopus citations are more common than Google Books citations to UK government publications, especially for older documents, and for those in the broad grey literature areas of Healthcare, Education and Science. Since the difference is not huge, both may provide useful grey literature impact data. Precision estimated in two separate ways for both methods appears to show acceptable levels of error for the automated method when compared to a sample with known citation counts.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew S. Bickley & Kayvan Kousha & Michael Thelwall, 2020. "Can the impact of grey literature be assessed? An investigation of UK government publications cited by articles and books," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1425-1444, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03628-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03628-w
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2015. "An automatic method for extracting citations from Google Books," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(2), pages 309-320, February.
    2. David Wilkinson & Pardeep Sud & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Substance without citation: evaluating the online impact of grey literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 797-806, February.
    3. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall & Somayeh Rezaie, 2011. "Assessing the citation impact of books: The role of Google Books, Google Scholar, and Scopus," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(11), pages 2147-2164, November.
    4. Thelwall, Mike, 2017. "Three practical field normalised alternative indicator formulae for research evaluation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 128-151.
    5. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike, 2019. "Can Google Scholar and Mendeley help to assess the scholarly impacts of dissertations?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 467-484.
    6. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall & Somayeh Rezaie, 2011. "Assessing the citation impact of books: The role of Google Books, Google Scholar, and Scopus," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(11), pages 2147-2164, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthew S. Bickley & Kayvan Kousha & Michael Thelwall, 2022. "A systematic method for identifying references to academic research in grey literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 6913-6933, December.
    2. Haunschild, Robin & Bornmann, Lutz, 2023. "Which papers cited which tweets? An exploratory analysis based on Scopus data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    3. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall & Matthew Bickley, 2022. "The high scholarly value of grey literature before and during Covid-19," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3489-3504, June.

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