Google Scholar citations

This is too good not to report!

I looked at my Google Scholar page today. One of the items had an asterisk by it, so I decided to explore. It helpfully explained that this citation may include more than one item. On exploring further, I discovered that as well as

Designs, graphs, codes, and their links
PJ Cameron, JH Van Lint – 1992
Cited by 385

there was also

Codes, and their Links
PJ Cameron, JH Van Lint, G Designs – 1991
Cited by 92

But they don’t list “G Designs” among my co-authors. Should this researcher have Erdős number 2?? And why the different year?

About Peter Cameron

I count all the things that need to be counted.
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4 Responses to Google Scholar citations

  1. The author G Designs has another publication:
    Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking,
    G Designs – Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000
    Cited by 61

    (The actual title of this book is Local Histories/Global Designs; the title given is a subtitle.)

  2. Mark C. Wilson says:

    Did you report it to Google? Although such automated systems for research assessment are easy to make fun of, I think we need to work on making them better, not reject them outright. There was never a day where everyone read everything. The reputation of many older universities is based on not very much, as far as I can see, except that once your reputation is high, you attract better students and staff on average than when it isn’t. I don’t think we need to make very fine distinctions, but some quality judgments must be made. Of course, citation impact is a rather approximate measure of quality …

    • I didn’t report it. First, when I tried to log in to Google Scholar, it refused my password, and I couldn’t be bothered to reset it. Second, one computer had recognised the other computer’s mistake, since on the front page the two “publications” were unified. Third, it makes no difference, since I am too old to need citations, and Jack is dead. (I am not sure about G Designs, but (s)he can complain on his/her own account as far as I am concerned.) I have written before about the relative level of trust I have in Google Scholar compared to MathSciNet, though I can see why people use it in their CVs — h-index 45 rather than 20, that’s got to be good!

  3. This reminds me of a story from the time when Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London decided to change its name to Queen Mary, University of London. My colleague Wilfrid Hodges was giving a lecture in Germany, and put up his first slide, giving his name and affiliation as “Wilfrid Hodges, Queen Mary, University of London”. Somebody asked, “Is that a joint publication?”

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