MEDLINE search retrieval issues: A longitudinal query analysis of five vendor platforms.

ABSTRACT: This study compared the results of data collected from a longitudinal query analysis of the MEDLINE database hosted on multiple platforms that include PubMed, EBSCOHost, Ovid, ProQuest, and Web of Science. The goal was to identify variations among the search results on the platforms after controlling for search query syntax. We devised twenty-nine cases of search queries comprised of five semantically equivalent queries per case to search against the five MEDLINE database platforms. We ran our queries monthly for a year and collected search result count data to observe changes. We found that search results varied considerably depending on MEDLINE platform. Reasons for variations were due to trends in scholarly publication such as publishing individual papers online first versus complete is

SUBMITTER: Burns CS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8101950 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature