Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Information Processing, E-Business and Cloud Computing, Reduit, Mauritius 2015

A Comparative Analysis of Imported References from Two Search Databases

Using Reference Management Software
Sujit Kumar Basak
Lecturer, Department of Information Technology, Durban University of Technology
P. O. Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa
E-mail: sujitbasakmca@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This paper aimed to comparative analysis of two
search databases, namely-Springer Link and Google
Scholar uses EndNote reference management
software to import fields. This aim is achieved
based on experiment and it showed that EndNote
import more fields from Springer Link. However,
this finding could help to know researchers in order
to use the search databases and reference
management software for their research.

KEYWORDS
Search Databases, EndNote, analysis, reference
management software, accuracy.
1 INTRODUCTION
Reference management software is widely
known as, personal file mangers, citation
management software or the bibliographic
software [1]. It helps academic researchers to
write their articles in their desired format.
However, it also reduces researchers workload
in terms of editing articles and proofreading
articles to eliminate errors in their works [2].
Ref. [3] indicated that the main purpose of the
reference management software is to organize,
store and format their references in order to
submit their manuscript. Using this reference
management software academic researcher can
easily keep their literature systematically that
usually use researchers all the time for writing
their papers [4]. It has also been developed for
the academic researchers and students as a time
saving tool while they write their academic

ISBN: 978-1-941968-14-7 2015 SDIWC

papers [9]. At present in the market more than

25 reference management software exist and
among them some are free, some are having
high registration fees and some are very
difficult to install into PC [5]. Many researchers
indicated that in developing countries the
reference management software is very popular
and it is widely used by the researchers [7], [8],
[6].
2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
Ref. [10] concluded after having conducted a
study on 12 journals on business and economics
and indicated that the average error rate is off
41.7% in the reference having at least one error
and usually these errors are namely-authors
names, errors pagination, errors in the articles
or in the chapter titles. Studies by [11], [12],
[13] concluded that in the medical journals,
both in the general and in the specialty, the
errors rate range from 3% to 60%. Furthermore,
[14] indicated based on five psychology
journals, the error rate of these five journals are
respectively 15% in the title of the article, 12%
in authors, 6% in page number, 3% in volume
number and 2% in the journal title. Similarly,
[15] indicated based on experiment on 217
articles on three fashion journals and researcher
verified each reference with main source of the
articles in the six fields, namely-title of the
article, name of the author(s), title of the
journal, pagination, volume and the year. A
study conducted by [16] in the Internet Journal
of Medical Update on 60 articles and they

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Information Processing, E-Business and Cloud Computing, Reduit, Mauritius 2015

concluded that inaccurate references were 10%

and many researchers also indicated that
usually in the medical literature, the inaccuracy
reference is high [17-20].
3 AIM, OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
The aim of this research paper is to analyze the
imported fields from two search databases
using EndNote reference management software
which search database can provide more fields
systematically for researchers.
This aim is achieved through the following
objectives:
To identify the search databases which is more
accurate in terms of importing more fields;
To identify the similar fields between two search
databases in order to import fields.

In order to achieve the aim the following

research objectives were translated into
research questions:
Which search databases can import more fields
from Google Scholar and Springer Link using a
specific keywords uses reference management
software (EndNote)?
What are the similar fields and dissimilar fields
in terms of importing fields from Google Scholar
and Springer Link using EndNote reference
management software?

4 LITERATURE REVIEW
The main aim of this section is to present the
relevant literature for systematic review of
reference management software in order to
search
through
electronic
databases,
identification of records duplication and
elimination etc. Studies conducted several
researchers [24-31] indicated that reference
management software is very important for
researchers to maintain a large amount of

ISBN: 978-1-941968-14-7 2015 SDIWC

references to search. Studies conducted by [32]

and [33] concluded that reference management
software help researchers to capture, to
organize their references through electronic
database search, eliminate duplications from
multiple database searches. A study conducted
by a researcher and indicated that reference
management software can easily facilitate
researchers to enhance their reference more
quickly, more accurately and more accurately
[33]. According to [3], 79.5% of the
respondents have used reference management
software for their work. On the other hand, the
author also indicated that 4.8% have used
reference management software in their
published work. According to [34], reference
management software can easily scrap citation
information from web-based publications,
commercial sites and social network sites. In a
study by [35] indicated that reference
management software is a very important tool
for researchers and editors for biomedical
journals.
4.1 EndNote
A study was conducted by [22] indicated that
EndNote reference management software is a
commercial and it is used by institutions or by
individuals. However, the author also stated
that EndNote reference management software
was developed by Thomson Reuters and
EndNote was first released in 1988. Another
study by [21] indicated that there are millions
of users who are using EndNote reference
management software in order to locate and
download their full-text articles from selected
references or from group of references. Finally,
the researcher indicated that EndNote reference
management software usually has more than
5000 styles of bibliographic. According to [23],
EndNote reference management software is a
desktop based application and it can be used
online and offline through EndNote Web.
However, studies conducted by [22] indicated
that across the world, many researchers have
been using the EndNote reference management

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Information Processing, E-Business and Cloud Computing, Reduit, Mauritius 2015

software to store, collect, organize, manage

references, images, PDFs, references inserting
for manuscripts, placing of figures and tables
for word document or any other document.

5 METHODOLOGY
The keyword used to search articles from two
databases is the Academic Workload and
Quality. The article title was The impact of
different types of workload allocation models
on academic satisfaction and working life.
This article was available on the Springer Link
database on page 1 and on the Google Scholar
database on page 6. Each page was containing
20 articles for both the databases. EndNote
reference management software was used to
import fields from two databases, namelySpringer Link and Google Scholar. However,
EndNote software was used to import fields
from two different databases without
customizing and any changes of the software.

Issue
Pages
Date
Alternate Journal
ISSN
DOI
Keywords
URL
Language

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

1
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1

0= Fields did not import

1= Fields imported
The above Table 1 have shown in Figure 1,
Figure 2 and Figure 3 for the graphical
presentation.

6 RESULTS
Table 1 shows that using Google Scholar some
of the fields have not imported as compared to
the Springer Link. Furthermore, Table 1 also
clearly indicated that Springer Link imports
more fields than Google Scholar. Only 8 fields
have imported by Google Scholar whereas
Springer Link shows a total of 15 fields have
imported. Fields have not given in the table that
did not import by the software from both the
databases.
Table 1. Imported and non-imported fields from
Springer Link and Google Scholar databases
Fields
Author
Year
Title
Journal
Publisher
Volume

Databases
Springer Link
Google Scholar
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1

ISBN: 978-1-941968-14-7 2015 SDIWC

Figure 1. Comparative analysis of imported fields for two

different databases such as Springer Link and Google
Scholar

Figure 1 shows the graphical representation of

the two different databases, namely Springer
Link and Google Scholar. The following fields
are similar from both the search databases,
namely-Author, Year, Title, Journal, Volume,
Issue, Pages, ISSN, Keywords, URL and
Language.

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Information Processing, E-Business and Cloud Computing, Reduit, Mauritius 2015

Figure 3 shows that using EndNote from the

Springer Link the following fields were
imported namely-Author, Year, Title, Journal
Publisher, Volume, Issue, Pages, Date,
Alternate Journal, ISSN, DOI, Keywords, URL
and Language.

7 CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION

Figure 2. Fields imported from Google Scholar using

EndNote reference management software

Figure 2 shows that using EndNote from the

Google Scholar few fields did not import,
namely-Publisher, Date, Alternate Journal,
DOI, Keywords, URL and Language. On the
other hand, the following fields have imported
from Google Scholar namely-Author, Year,
Title, Journal, Publisher, Volume, Issue, Pages
and ISSN.

This study, however, have informed that the

reference management software is very
important for researchers and it can help
researchers to know which database can help to
import more fields. The limitation of this study
was that it was experimented on specific
keywords (Academic Workload and Quality)
and on a specific article (The impact of different
types of workload allocation models on
academic satisfaction and working life). For the
future research it can be widely studied such as
more than one keywords and more articles.
Furthermore, this study shown that from the
Springer Link using specific keyword by using
EndNote reference management software
imports more fields than Google Scholar. This
study will help research in order to know search
databases to get more fields.

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Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Digital Information Processing, E-Business and Cloud Computing, Reduit, Mauritius 2015

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