Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Google Scholar differs from commercial databases (such as EbscoHost and ProQuest) in that no precise information is available on its content, coverage and frequency of updates. However, Google Scholar contains material from a wide range of disciplines and sources: papers, presentations, books, abstracts and articles produced by academic publishers, communities, universities and other scientific organizations.

Please note that Google Scholar also searches a large part of Laurea's licensed databases and you can use it as a meta search in the same way as the Laurea Finance article search. You'll find instructions on this page.

Google Scholar features

Google Scholar includes both basic and advanced search, but its search features are underdeveloped compared to commercial databases.

Google Scholar's search results are variable. It may contain a link to the full text of the article, an abstract only, or a reference only. The search result is ranked according to Google Scholar's own ranking order. No further details on the ranking are available, but the number of citations a publication receives seems to be a fairly decisive factor in the ranking. Thus, the most recent publications are not always at the top of the results list.

Google Scholar includes a citation index. This means that Google Scholar will bring articles with a high number of citations to the top of the search results for your search topic. This is a particularly good feature for students and early career researchers, as articles with more citations are generally more useful to the information seeker.

If there are multiple versions of an article, Google Scholar will group them together. The full text of the journal article is considered the most representative. Other versions of the article may include publications that precede the journal article, such as preprints, abstracts and conference proceedings. The search result will also include a link to the full text of the article if the user is online at their university and the library has access to the publication. Open Access articles are also available.

Google Scholar search results can be increased by searching for references using the "Cited by" and "Related articles" features. The "Cited by" link brings up Google Scholar publications that reference the article in the search result, and the "Related articles" link brings up articles of the same type as the article in the search result.

Source (in Finnish): Oulun yliopisto. Tieteellisiin julkaisuihin pohjautuva arviointi (" Assessment based on scientific publications") - Google Scholar

How to use Google Scholar?

Laurea-acquired e-resources available through Google Scholar search: see the instructions below in this section.

Search field: enter your search terms.

Advanced search: you can use the advanced search options for more detailed results, such as limiting your search by publication year.

Citations: Google Scholar provides information on citations to search results.

My library: Save your favorites in your own library.

Laurea-acquired e-resources available through Google Scholar search

Google Scholar search results often include documents that require the purchase of a reading license. The Laurea Library has acquired access rights for Laurea users to a number of different databases, many of which contain articles and other documents that can also be found using Google Scholar. These documents can be accessed from Google Scholar via the SFX link.

When you are online at Laurea

When you are online in Laurea network, the Google Scholar search results automatically include links to Fulltext: sfx@Laurea. Clicking on these links will take the user to the Laurea SFX linking window to the database where the article is available.

When you are outside the Laurea network

If you are using Google Scholar outside the Laurea network with a direct link to scholar.google.fi, SFX links must be activated separately on the service's website.

Select Settings -> Library links -> Search for 'Laurea' -> Select 'Laurea' -> Click Save
Google Scholarin kirjastolinkkien hakeminen ja tallentaminen.

You will then get Laurea SFX links in your search results. If necessary, log in with your Laurea username and password while accessing the article you want.

Google Scholarin hakutulos ja sfx-linkit.

Watch the video below (in Finnish) on how to use Google Scholar: