exaly is a non-profit project to address the absence of an open and comprehensive resource of scholarly literature and scientometric data. We prefer to call it a
project rather than an organisation to avoid corporate interest. Otherwise, as highlighted below,
exaly provides almost all services by Google Scholar, Web of Science, Publons, Scopus, Crossref, and ResearchGate combined.
Problem
Almost all databases are based on user-generated or user-corrected entries. Therefore, these databases cannot be used for author ranking, as they are biased toward the authors who are active on the platform. Similar bias can occur for authors who are active on other platforms (e.g., Google Scholar tends to include several versions of an article found on different websites, though the aim is to merge them eventually). The problem arises from the fact that every platform welcomes user contribution, as it improves both engagement and pageviews along with free correction of the machine errors but at the expense of sacrificing the integrity of the whole dataset.
Solution
exaly is an unbiased database with no human contribution/alteration. Instead of fixing errors, we alter the whole algorithm to reduce the probability of that error. Therefore, any correction is applied system-wide. If there is a machine error, it applies to all authors.
Problem
Almost all platforms have their own agenda. For example, Scopus introduced CiteScore (instead of impact factor), favouring Elsevier's journals (its parent company) in comparison with journals putting more weight on non-citable articles. Google Scholar put weights on web documents (i.e., the target of its parent company) rather than scholarly literature itself. ReseachGate introduced RG Score (as an alternative to metrics like h-index), which increases by the user activities on the platform (it is about to be removed). Crossref excludes (or does not include) articles without a DOI or those whose DOIs have been issued by other DOI issuers.
Solution
exaly is not perfect, but at least, it is totally unbiased and independent. There is no corporate or commercial interest to affect the strategies and policies.
The following tables compare the features of exaly with similar databases. Note that this is NOT a marketing comparison, and the purpose is to highlight what is missing in the available commercial products. If any estimation is incorrect, please let us know to correct it.
Licences
| exaly | Google Scholar | Web of Science + Publons | Scopus | Crossref | ResearchGate |
Parent Company | none | Google Inc. | Clarivate | Elsevier | International DOI Foundation (registration agency of) | ResearchGate GmbH |
Subscription | No | No | strictly required | required (previews are available) | required for some services | No |
Licence | Creative Commons | Commercial | Commercial | Commercial | Open Citations | Commercial |
Journal Coverage
| exaly | Google Scholar | Web of Science + Publons | Scopus | Crossref | ResearchGate |
Journals | 81.6 K [1] | no journal profile | 22 K [2] | 27 K [3] | no journal profile | no journal profile |
Articles | 143 M [4] | no journal profile | 82 M [2] | 84 M [3] | 137 M [5] | no data |
Authors | 4.9 M [6] | ~3 M | no data | 17 M [3] | no author profile | ~3 M (20 M registered accounts) |
Institutions | 63 K [7] | no institution profile | ~90 K | 94 K [3] | no institution profile | no institution profile |
Scientometrics
| exaly | Google Scholar | Web of Science + Publons | Scopus | Crossref | ResearchGate |
Author, No of Articles | | | | | | |
Author, No of Citations | | | | | | |
Author, Percentile | | | | | | |
Journal, Impact Factor | | | | | | |
Journal, h-index | | | | | | |
Author, h-index | | | | | | |
Author, g-index | | | | | | |
Author, L-index | | | | | | |
Author Rankings
| exaly | Google Scholar | Web of Science + Publons | Scopus | Crossref | ResearchGate |
most cited authors | | | top 6,602 authors only | | | |
most published authors | | | | | | |
most cited authors of a discipline | | | | | | |
most published authors of a discipline | | | | | | |
most cited authors of a journal | | | | | | |
most published authors of a journal | | | | | | |
Full-Text Search
| exaly | Google Scholar | Web of Science + Publons | Scopus | Crossref | ResearchGate |
full-text search | | | | | | |
Search in Figure Captions | | | | | | |
Search in Tables | | | | | | |
exaly Impact Factor vs JCR Impact Factor
| exaly Impact Factor | JCR Impact Factor (JIF) |
excluding non-peer-reviewed articles | | |
excluding retracted articles | | |
re-calculation and error correction | | |
This is not a criticism of JIF™, and the impact factors are computed by two different models. Clarivate publishes the JIF™ once a year, and the values remain forever. Instead, exaly updates the values following error correction or article retraction. We believe the latter is of great importance, as retracted articles are often controversial reports attracting numerous citations.
Services provided by other platforms, but not exaly
• Publons provides the summary of reviewing tasks completed by authors whenever the publisher shares the peer-review process with Publons. Not only are those data not available to exaly, but it also falls outside the scope of the present project. |
• Scopus calculates CiteScore as an alternative to Impact Factor. Adding CiteScore to exaly is easy and straightforward, but we are not sure about its trademark status. CiteScore is considered an Elsevier property rather than a well-established scientometric index since Elsevier substantially changed its calculation method in 2020. |
• ResearchGate as a social network allows the interaction of members, but the authors' contribution is the opposite of our philosophy in creating an unbiased database. |