Microsoft Academic

Microsoft Academic gained prominence because it profiled authors, organizations, keywords, and journals and made the dataset available as open data, in contrast to Google Scholar. The search engine indexed over 260 million publications,[https://web.archive.org/web/20160316140810/https://academic.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Academic] 88 million of which are journal articles.

Preliminary reviews by bibliometricians suggested the new Microsoft Academic Search was a competitor to Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus for academic research purposes{{cite journal|last1=Harzing|first1=Anne-Wil|title=Microsoft Academic (Search): a Phoenix arisen from the ashes?|journal=Scientometrics|url=http://www.harzing.com/download/mas.pdf|access-date=29 January 2017}}{{cite journal|last1=Hug|first1=Sven E.|last2=Braendle|first2=Martin P.|title=The coverage of Microsoft Academic: Analyzing the publication output of a university|journal=Scientometrics|volume=113|pages=1551–1571|doi=10.1007/s11192-017-2535-3|arxiv=1703.05539|year=2017|issue=3 |s2cid=2458635}} as well as citation analysis.{{cite journal|last1=Harzing|first1=Anne-Wil|last2=Alakangas|first2=Satu|title=Microsoft Academic: is the Phoenix getting wings?|journal=Scientometrics|url=http://www.harzing.com/download/mas2.pdf|access-date=29 January 2017}}{{cite journal|last1=Hug|first1=Sven E.|last2=Ochsner|first2=Michael|last3=Braendle|first3=Martin P.|title=Citation analysis with Microsoft Academic|journal=Scientometrics|volume=111|pages=371–378|doi=10.1007/s11192-017-2247-8|arxiv=1609.05354|year=2017|s2cid=14179411}}{{cite journal|last1=Haunschild|first1=Robin|last2=Hug|first2=Sven E.|last3=Braendle|first3=Martin P.|last4=Bornmann|first4=Lutz|title=The number of linked references of publications in Microsoft Academic in comparison with the Web of Science|journal=Scientometrics|doi=10.1007/s11192-017-2567-8|arxiv=1710.04031|year=2017|volume=114|pages=367–370 |s2cid=21342104}} However, it was primarily used as a resource in the field of computer science since that was the most completely indexed information.{{Cite book|last1=Chowdhury|first1=G. G.|title=Digital Libraries and Information Access: Research Perspectives|last2=Foo|first2=Schubert|publisher=Facet Publishing|year=2012|isbn=978-1-85604-821-7|pages=137|language=en}}

On May 4, 2021, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft Academic website and APIs would be retired on December 31, 2021.{{Cite web|title=Next Steps for Microsoft Academic - Expanding into New Horizons|url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/academic/articles/microsoft-academic-to-expand-horizons-with-community-driven-approach/|access-date=2021-05-28|website=Microsoft Research|date=4 May 2021 |language=en-US}}

Thanks to the open data license, the Microsoft Academic dataset was merged into OpenAlex. However, the underlying software was proprietary and had to be rewritten.

That Microsoft launched and soon after shut down both Microsoft Academic and its predecessor Microsoft Academic Search has been interpreted as a sign that Microsoft "had never intended to enter into the business of scholarly metadata. Instead, the tech giant has been using data on scholarly communication as testing ground for big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies".{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/05/27/goodbye-microsoft-academic-hello-open-research-infrastructure/|title=Goodbye, Microsoft Academic – Hello, open research infrastructure?|last1=Tay|first1=Aaron|last2=Martín-Martín|first2=Alberto|last3=Hug|first3=Sven E.|date=27 May 2021|website=Impact of Social Sciences|access-date=2 May 2022}}

The Academic Knowledge API offered information retrieval from the underlying database using REST endpoints for advanced research purposes.{{cite web|last1=Microsoft|title=Academic Knowledge API|website=Microsoft|url=https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-us/academic-knowledge-api|access-date=29 January 2017}} The search engine provided not only search results and access to sources but also citation information that include the number of sources, g-index, and h-index.{{Cite book|last=Thomas|first=C. George|title=Research Methodology and Scientific Writing, Second Edition|publisher=Springer Nature|year=2021|isbn=978-3-030-64864-0|location=Cham|pages=241}} Aside from academic publications, it was also used to find websites that contain state and local records.{{Cite book|last=Parsons|first=Stephen P.|title=Interviewing and Investigating: Essentials Skills for the Legal Professional|publisher=Wolters Kluwer Law & Business|year=2019|isbn=978-1-5438-0107-1|location=Frederick, MD|pages=505}} The technology uses machine learning, semantic inference and knowledge discovery from sources crawled and indexed by the Bing search engine.{{Cite book|last=Ahmi|first=Aidi|title=Bibliometric Analysis for Beginners: A starter guide to begin with a bibliometric study using Scopus dataset and tools such as Microsoft Excel, Harzing's Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software.|year=2021|pages=25|language=en}}

Microsoft Academic replaced the earlier Microsoft research project, Microsoft Academic Search, which ended development in 2012.{{cite web | url=http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/05/the-decline-and-fall-of-microsoft-academic-search.html | title=The decline and fall of Microsoft Academic Search | website=blogs.nature.com | publisher=Nature | date=20 May 2014 | first=Richard | last=Van Noorden | access-date=22 December 2016 | archive-date=23 May 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140523101833/http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/05/the-decline-and-fall-of-microsoft-academic-search.html | url-status=dead }} The platform was developed in 2009 of the Microsoft Research branch in Asia and the project was headed by Zaiqing Nie.{{Cite book|last=Ortega|first=Jose Luis|title=Academic Search Engines: A Quantitative Outlook|publisher=Elsevier|year=2014|isbn=978-1-84334-791-0|location=Oxford|pages=71}} Microsoft Academic was re-launched in 2016, as a tool that features an entirely new data structure and search engine using semantic search technologies.

• OpenAlex
• Microsoft Academic Search
• Live Search Academic
• List of academic databases and search engines

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{{Wikidata property|1=P6366}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160316140810/https://academic.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Academic website]
• [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/academic/ Project description on Microsoft Research website]

Category:Internet properties with year of establishment missing

Category:Online databases

Category:Microsoft websites

Category:Scholarly search services

Category:Bibliographic databases and indexes

Category:Internet properties established in 2016

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