Google Scholar Adoption by LIS Educators in India: An Exploratory Study

Abstract Google Scholar (GS) is one of the popular online databases fulfilling the research needs of academicians by providing an open and freely accessible platform for searching scholarly research along with basic research metrics (citations, h-index, i10, etc.) to assess productivity of an author or researcher. Now that GS is being used to measure the research performance of individual’s as-well-as institutions, it becomes very important to maintain a verified profile. This paper aims to analyse dual inter-related issues. Quantify LIS schools in India are the primary focus area of the study. Secondly, the scenario of LIS educators of India under GS will be evaluated. It also presents the accurate status of Indian universities (government) imparting LIS education and to investigate how many faculties of those universities are using Google scholar account for showcasing their research productivity. The study unveils those educators (LIS) whose articles are scattering under GS database but due to unavailability of profile GS can’t compute scientometric data for them. As per the VIDWAN database - an expert database developed by INFLIBNET, many LIS educators do not have their own Google scholar ID. In India out of 470 govt universities about 129 have LIS schools. Total 324 LIS educators are recruited under those universities. Only 206 educators possess own GS profile. Hence, the GS profile adoption ratio between Indian LIS educators is not impressive. This study can give an overview of the above-mentioned dual topics in details latter