20 suggestions to improve Google Scholar and motivate global scholars

By Rushan Ziatdinov

Google Scholar is a wonderful, freely accessible web search engine that indexes academic publications' full text and metadata from various publishing formats and disciplines. It indexes many more documents than Scopus or Web of Science databases, which can be found without registration in Google Scholar.

After using it since 2006, it seems there has not been much change visually. This, of course, does not mean that search algorithms and various statistics are not developing. However, I would like to propose 20 suggestions in this article to advance Google Scholar.

1. The landing page looks overly simple, with a metaphor reading: "Standing on the shoulders of giants." I suggest that other inspirational quotes from notable international scientists, or inspirational images could be displayed. These could be changed daily or weekly. Such inspirational texts could vary based on research interests, geographic location, etc. As a part of a global company, Google Scholar can find better ways to motivate and inspire researchers globally.

2. Behind the search field are two radio buttons, "Article" and "Case law". Global researchers are not interested in what happens in the U.S. state or federal courts. Therefore, more filtering options are required here than the two radio buttons indicated above. It would be more rational to add checkboxes such as, for example, "Articles," "Conference Proceedings," "Patents," so that users can conveniently select what type of document they are looking for.

3. How about adding the possibility of searching articles by author name, article title, source title, keywords, affiliation, etc., as it is done in Scopus?

4. After typing a query in a search field, Google Scholar opens a new page where documents are, by default, sorted by relevance. Is Google's Page Rank algorithm used here? Users can sort documents by relevance or date on the left static menu. Out of curiosity, I typed "Albert Einstein" in a search field, and the text below the search field showed that there are "About 1,520,000 results (0.07 sec)." Can more details be added to this statistic? After, I clicked "Sort by date" in the left menu, and the text below the search field showed only "About 851 results (0.05 sec)" (for "Abstracts") and "About 21,300 results (0.07 sec)" (for "Everything").

5. It would be wonderful if documents were sorted not only by relevance or date but also by the type of a document (html, pdf, doc, etc.); number of citations (this feature is only available in a personal profile); number of authors of a document; or number of research organizations listed, and so forth.

Also, sorting by date in ascending and descending order would help researchers to find the oldest documents. There are recommendations for searching for better answers via the help page, but convenience needs to be worked into these.

6. Users can filter search results by "Anytime," "Since 2023," "Since 2022," "Since 2019," and "Custom Range." Years are redundant here, since all these can be done in the "Custom Range."

7. Documents in the left menu are classified into "Any type" and "Review Article." Adding more varieties, such as research articles, short communication papers, book reviews, newspaper articles, posters, presentations and the like, will help users.

8. Besides the static menu on the left side of the page, there is another pop-up menu with search results. Why not merge these menus into one and enrich it?

9. An e-mail for scholar support can be found on the "Inclusion Guidelines for Webmasters" page. How about adding a "Feedback" form on Google Scholar's help page, where users can suggest their ideas or ask questions?

10. Enriching metrics for search queries would strengthen Google Scholar. Currently, metrics show only "Top publications" and "Public access mandates."

11. The current limitation of only being able to select 10 or 20 results per page on Google Scholar can be inconvenient for users, as it requires frequent pagination. To improve the user experience, it would be beneficial to increase the number of results per page, by offering options such as 100 and 1000, or even allowing users to input their desired number of results per page.

12. On YouTube, there is a myriad of excellent documentaries and academic talks. Why not add them to Google Scholar as well?

13. I like the personal profile for researchers that Google Scholar has. Here, I would split "Title" into "Papers," "Books," "Conference Proceedings," etc., and add "Videos", so that researchers could manually add their academic talks hosted on YouTube. Also, sorting by various criteria can be improved here.

14. Not all users' interests are displayed on their profiles, particularly if they have a wide range. When clicking on one of these areas, a list of researchers who work in the same field will appear.

15. It would be highly beneficial for Google Scholar to enhance the user profile feature, by turning it into a comprehensive public online CV. This would enable researchers to showcase their quantitative statistics and a variety of qualitative information, such as traditional or video CVs, and other relevant details.

It is worth mentioning that recent research by Koltun and Hajner (2021) published in the PLOS One journal, suggests that the h-index may not be an accurate indicator of scientific reputation. Therefore, it would be valuable to consider alternative metrics in presenting statistics on the user profile.

16. While Google Scholar indexes metadata, it does not offer a service for finding the most appropriate journal to submit an article to. Elsevier, Springer, and Taylor & Francis have used a journal suggestion service in their databases for many years. This would be a fantastic option for users, since Google Scholar's database is much larger.

17. In language settings, Latin ― once the prominent language of science ― is missing. Other languages not commonly used nowadays are probably worth adding.

18. In the settings, there are 40 languages for Google text and 13 for search results. This may sound utopian, but I wish that academic documents written in all world languages could be found on Google Scholar. The United Nations should also give this some serious thought by developing programs and regulations that support the inclusion of minority languages in academic databases, and the academic development of such languages thereby. These minority languages are doomed to disappear if they are not practiced or developed academically.

19. While Google Scholar recommends articles written by other authors, it has no option to connect them directly and discuss findings.

20. Google Scholar could become a potent portal, where people conduct research collectively by, for example; writing papers together or developing joint presentations through Google Docs or Slides); discussing and sharing ideas; using the latest progress in AI; and helping each other to progress.

Rushan Ziatdinov (www.ziatdinov-lab.com) is a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Keimyung University, Daegu.