Microsoft Makes Another Major Update to Academic Search Database

We continue to be very impressed with what Microsoft Research is up to with Microsoft Academic Search.

Today, several enhancements were made to this research tool along with an increase to the size of the database.

Details

1. MS Academic Research now provides info about 35.3 million publications (many available full text) from 18.9 million authors. 

For Comparison:

• From 15.7 million publications to 27.1 million publications during July, 2011
• From 10.5 million authors to 16.2 million authors during July, 2011

2. 8 domains have been added (including Arts and Humanities)

3. Compare Organizations
Compare all the information in different domains and different year ranges for organizations (i.e. Harvard & Yale or Stanford & U. of Michigan.

4. More ranking options have been added in author rank list pages and organization rank list pages.

5. RefWorks tagged format has been added in the Export feature, and users can export all of one author’s publications at a time.

6. External API has been enhanced by allowing API users to get data in table format.

7, The homepage now features links to eight data visualization tools including the new Call For Papers Calendar where you can search and visualize CFP’s by domain, date, and region. Make sure to to take a look at our two favorite visualization tools, Citation Graph and Domain Trend (only available for Computer Science at the moment).

Btw, the advanced search interface allows users to search using a DOI.

Quick Comments

We’ve been writing about (and using) this search product for two years* and its growth has been very steady and regular both in terms of growth of the database and the addition of new features.

MS Academic Research still has room for growth but it’s very now very clear that Microsoft Research and Microsoft are putting a lot of resources into this product.

The challenges for Microsoft are not only continuing to build out the product (how about ending the need for Silverlight?) BUT to also let potential users know it’s available and most importantly what it can offer. Marketing is not easy.

So,  if you haven’t done so already, it might be time to take a look at MS Academic and give it a spin.

See Also: Some of Our MS Academic Posts. They also more detail about some features.

• Google Scholar “Citations” Launches & A Look at What Microsoft Is Up To With Academic Search
• Microsoft Academic Search: A Major Update and Several New Features Now Available (July 2011)

* Microsoft Academic Search 2011 is new. It is not the same poor (very poor) academic search product that MS offered between 2006-2008. It’s all new technology.

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