About Microsoft Academic Search

Microsoft Academic Search is a free service developed by Microsoft Research to help scholars, scientists, students, and practitioners quickly and easily find academic content, researchers, institutions, and activities. Microsoft Academic Search indexes not only millions of academic publications, it also displays the key relationships between and among subjects, content, and authors, highlighting the critical links that help define scientific research. Microsoft Academic Search makes it easy for you to direct your search experience in interesting and heretofore hidden directions with its suite of unique features and visualizations.

How Microsoft Academic Search differs from Bing

Bing is a comprehensive, general interest search engine. It includes scholarly content, but is by no means limited to it. In contrast, Microsoft Academic Search concentrates exclusively on scholarly materials. With Microsoft Academic Search, not only are all search results relevant to the research community, but search results also contain features uniquely geared toward this audience.

How Microsoft Academic Search results are ranked

In Microsoft Academic Search, objects in the search results are sorted based on two factors:

• Their relevance to the query.
• A static rank value that is calculated for each item in the Microsoft Academic Search index. The static rank encompasses the authority of the result, which is determined by several details, such as how often and where a publication is cited.

Some search results can be sorted by Field Rating. The field rating is similar to h-index in that it calculates the number of publications by an author and the distribution of citations to the publications. Field rating only calculates publications and citations within a specific field and shows the impact of the scholar or journal within that specific field.

Basic search

Advanced search

To narrow your search to a specific subject area.

1. Type your search terms(s) in the box, and then click the drop-down arrow next to Fields of Study.
2. Select a field, and then click the search button.

You can also perform advanced searches in the basic search box with structured queries. You can use the Structured Query Language as follows:

<query> := <tokens>+
<token> := <normal query> | <field query>
<normal query> := (array of any non-white-space character)
<field query> := <key><oper><field query value>
<key> := 'author' | 'title' | 'conf' | 'jour' | 'year'
<oper> := '>=' | '<=' | ':' | '=' | '>' | '<'
<field query value> : <normal query> | '(' <normal query>+ ')'

For example, to search for publications containing "object level" in the title and published after 2004, type: title:(object level) year>=2004"

Understanding search results

When you conduct a search, Microsoft Academic Search returns a list of publications on the search results page.
The search results display publication titles, authors, journals, and citation information. You can explore any of these elements further by clicking them. For example, if you click a journal name, you will see a list of all publications from that journal that are indexed by Microsoft Academic Search.

The sidebar. The sidebar of the search results page displays contextual information to help you further identify relevant resources. Depending on your search, this might include popular authors, recent conferences, journals, and related keywords. You can click any of these related search topics for additional information.

The publication detail page. When you find a publication that is relevant to your interests, click the publication title to go to the publication detail page.

A publication detail page contains the following information:

• View Publication—A link to access the full-text publication, when available. If multiple versions of the publication exist (for example, the published version and a postprint), Microsoft Academic Search links to each version, with the version of record listed first if applicable.
• Citations—A link to the full list of publications that cite the publication. The number represents the total found in the publication list.
• Author Name(s)—Link(s) to the author(s) profile page(s) that provide details about the author(s), such as website, affiliation, address, and publication list.
• Publication Abstract.
• Bibliographic Detail—Includes volume, issue, and year.
• Publication Source—A link to the conference or journal page that provides details such as the publication count, citation count, publication year range, and publication list.
• Citation Graph—A visual display of the publication’s longitudinal citation history.

In addition, the sidebar of the publication detail page lets you browse by related keywords and publications. Click the Citation Graph button to go to the clickable graph that provides a way of navigating from a particular resource to the publications that cite it.

You can also subscribe to a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed for any search result by clicking Subscribe at the upper right of the search results page.

Finding content related to search results

The aim of Microsoft Academic Search is to help you uncover information related to your research query. This includes not only journal publications on the topic in question, but also the authors, conferences, and publications that are associated with the topic. The search results sidebar contains a variety of links to help you explore the most relevant resources.

Browsing by topic

The Microsoft Academic Search home page contains a list of fields of study. Click any of these to explore popular publications, organizations, and authors within that field. Each field contains a number of specialized fields that can be browsed in the same manner. In addition, to identify publications, experts, conferences, and other information, you can browse by field-specific keywords.

Finding the citations of publications

One of the most important components of searching academic publications is citation linking. Following citations from and to publications is critical to information discovery. Microsoft Academic Search provides an efficient mechanism to facilitate this. Search results, whenever possible, display lists and links to both referenced publications and citing publications.

Microsoft Academic Search highlights the context of a citation (when possible) by displaying the section of the citing publication in which it is referenced.

The accuracy and completeness of these lists is largely dependent on information provided by the publisher or content host. If you have any suggested corrections or ideas to improve this feature, contact acadfb@microsoft.com. Microsoft is committed to the continued development of features that make it easier for researchers to follow citation paths.

Finding the top results in your field

Microsoft Academic Search provides detailed rankings in more than a dozen different fields. Rankings are based on the publications and citations that are currently indexed by Microsoft Academic Search. Rankings will change as more information is added.

To find the top results in your field

1. Go to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. On the home page, under All Fields of Study on the left, click the field that interests you.
3. Click Authors, Publication, Journals, Keywords, or Organizations to see top results.

Understanding an author profile page

Author profiles are dynamically created for researchers whose work is discoverable within Microsoft Academic Search. Author profiles contain publication histories, citation information, collaboration details, publication lists, research interests, and institutional affiliations.

Please note that the information associated with Microsoft Academic Search author profiles is derived from the tens of millions of scholarly publications that are currently indexed by Microsoft Academic Search. Most of these publications have reference lists that Microsoft processes. The indexed publications and reference lists help create a snapshot of individual authors' publication history, productivity, and impact. As more content is indexed within Microsoft Academic Search, the accuracy and completeness of the author profile data improves. In addition, and consistent with indexing industry norms, Microsoft Academic Search does not filter out self-citations from its citation counts. Learn more about updating an author profile .

Coauthor Graph

Coauthor Path

A related feature is the Coauthor Path, which lets you enter the names of two scholars and see the “degrees of separation” between them. Both the Coauthor Path and the Coauthor Graph features can be easily embedded into external websites.

Citation Graph

This visual representation feature shows the citation relationships among publications, providing an innovative way of navigating from a particular publication to the publications that cite it. Double-clicking a citing publication will re-draw the graph, showing the publications that cite that publication. Clicking the edge between any two publications will expose the citation context, provided such information is available in Microsoft Academic Search.

Publication Trends

This feature provides analysis of publication trends of academic fields and stacked area charts of the data. It provides you with a clear view of how publication interests have changed over time. You can also get a list of top authors during a selected time period.

Academic Map

This feature makes it easy for you to map scholarly output within organizations geographically. Organizations are displayed as dots on a global map with their color and size related to their number of authors. Clicking an organization displays further detail about its authors. You can also filter the displayed organizations and authors by field; organizations automatically resize based on their number of authors in that particular field.

Organization Comparison

This feature lets you compare the information of two organizations, such as their citation counts, keywords, and top authors. A scatter plot displays the trends in the number of publications and citations for each organization. The results page also displays the differences between the keywords related to the organizations’ research priorities and research fields. Keywords that are related to only one organization are displayed in blue. Keywords that are related to both organizations are displayed in orange. You can also compare the authors of each organization by looking at each organization’s author lists.

About the Microsoft Academic Search API

Microsoft Academic Search provides application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow you to build compelling tools and experiences on top of the rich data. Whether you want to build your own ranking of institutions or build a visual explorer for browsing academic papers in the genetics field, we believe the APIs make it easy for you to start that project.We will continue to improve the APIs and we look forward to closely working with you—the community—to make sure the APIs do deliver the reliable, high-quality results so that you can focus on your apps and services.

The API program demonstrates the commitment of Microsoft Research to collaboration by placing its building blocks into the open science community. Microsoft Academic Search is a service of Microsoft Research. The charter of Microsoft Research is to collaborate with the world’s foremost researchers in academia, industry, and government to move research in new directions across nearly every field of computer science, engineering, and general science. Microsoft Academic Search helps to accomplish this goal by improving the discoverability of scholarly materials. Microsoft Research recognizes that one way to multiply this impact is to open up its index to other non-commercial research entities whose creativity and talent can directly accelerate research and discovery.

Examples of the Microsoft Academic Search API

Among the new and innovative uses of Microsoft Academic Search data are the Eigenfactor project, which has been exploring the flow of citations between the subdomains of Computer Science literature and producing new interactive maps, and the ScienceCard project, which is aggregating various forms of publication-level metrics.

AppID restrictions

Please take note of the following restrictions before requesting an AppID:

1. The service, application, tool, website, or a feature in a product that you build can be for non-commercial use only or must be available in a free version of the product.
2. All our APIs come with the standard 200 queries per minute.
3. Each API call returns only 100 items per call.
4. You cannot use the API to crawl the entire corpus.

Requesting an AppID

To request a new AppID, please provide the following information in an email message, and send it to acadapi@microsoft.com.
Contact Person:
Contact Email:
Project URL:

Please provide a description of your project (should be longer than 100 words) or provide the URL to the webpage that has your project description.

Please include the following statements: "We have read and agree with the specific terms for Microsoft Academic Search. We have also read and agree with the Microsoft Services Agreement".

Content sources included in Microsoft Academic Search

Microsoft Academic Search encompasses the entire research spectrum, including science, technology, and medicine(STM), the social sciences, and the humanities. Microsoft Academic Search provides comprehensive results in 15 different disciplines and more than 200 subdomains. We continue to work with dozens of publishers and other content providers to increase our data coverage.
If you have a content source you would like to see included within Microsoft Academic Search, or if you are a publisher that wishes to participate, please send an email message to acadfb@microsoft.com.

The following content providers that have agreed to participate in Microsoft Academic Search as of early 2013. Note that some partners’ content is still in process and is not yet available.

Content types included in Microsoft Academic Search

Microsoft Academic Search includes journal publications, conference proceedings, reports, white papers, and a variety of other content types. It is not uncommon for multiple versions of a research paper to exist (for example, preprints, postprints, and published publications). Whenever possible, Microsoft Academic Search search results group multiple versions of a publication together. When a publication has a definitive “version of record” (that is, a published journal publication), the search results list the version of record first, along with the publisher’s logo.

Accessing the full text of publications

Microsoft Academic Search does not store the full text of publications. However, if an identifiable link to the full text of a search result can be located, you will see a download link on the publication detail page. The download link will redirect you to the source of the publication, where you can access the full text. Some of these sources might require a personal or library subscription, membership fee, or other payment before you can download the publication.

Adding an author profile

To add an author profile

An author profile is automatically created when a publication is added to Microsoft Academic Search. Learn more about adding publications. It can take up to a week before the author profile is available on Microsoft Academic Search. If you cannot find the author profile after that time has passed, you can contact acadfb@microsoft.com. and request that an author profile be created.

Editing author basic information

To edit author basic information

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the author profile you would like to edit.
3. On the author profile page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the Edit basic information page, make the changes you would like to make to the author profile, and then click Save.

Editing publications

To change a publication associated with an author profile

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the author profile of the publication you would like to edit.
3. On the author profile page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the left side of the page, click Edit publications.
5. On the Edit publications page:
   • To make changes to any publication, click the edit icon to the right of the publication title, make your changes, and then click the Save button below the publication.
   • To remove publications from the author profile, click the remove button, and then click Submit at the bottom of the page.
   • To change top 3 selections, select or clear the top 3 check box below the publication titles, and then click Submit at the bottom of the page.

Merging author profiles

If you find duplicate author profiles in Microsoft Academic Search, you can merge them.
To merge author profiles

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the author profile into which you would like to merge other author profiles.
3. On the author profile page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the left side of the page, click Merge author profiles.
5. In the author name box, type the name of the author profile that you would like to merge with the author profile you are editing, and then click Search.
6. Select the author profile(s) to merge with the author profile you are editing, and then click Next.This step merges all publications.
7. Select an author profile to keep, and then click Save. This is the author profile under which all publications will appear.

Adding publications

To add a publication by using a PDF URL

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the author profile you would like to add a publication to.
3. On the author profile page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the left side of the page, click Add publications.
5. On the Add publication page, in the PDF URL box, enter the PDF URL for the publication, and then click Add.
6. Click Submit.

• You can also enter publication information by using the text boxes.
• The PDF URL must include the .pdf extension and the PDF must be less than 10 MB. You will be prompted to fill in any required information that Microsoft Academic Search could not extract from the PDF. For example, if Microsoft Academic Search cannot extract the year of the publication, but can extract the title and author, you will be prompted to provide the year of publication manually.

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the author profile to which you would like to add a publication.
3. On the author profile page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the left side of the page, click Add publications.
5. On the Add publication page, click Upload a BibTex file.
6. Click Browse.
7. Browse to the location of the BibTeX file, and then click Add
8. Click Submit.

Embedding author profile information in a web page

You can embed author profile information in webpages that are hosted elsewhere, such as your home page. To do so, from any author profile page, click the Embed button at the upper right of the page. Click the Generate JavaScript Code button. Copy the entire JavaScript code shown in the right window, and paste it into your webpage.

Editing publication basic information

To edit publication basic information

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the title of the publication you would like to edit.
3. On the publication detail page, click Edit.
4. On the Edit publication page, make the changes you would like to make to the publication, and then click Save.

Merging publications

If you find duplicate publications in Microsoft Academic Search, you can merge them.
To merge publications

1. Sign in to Microsoft Academic Search.
2. Find and click the publication into which you would like to merge another publication.
3. On the publication details page, click Edit on the upper right of the page.
4. On the left side of the page, click Merge publication.
5. In the box, enter a publication name, and then click Search.
6. Next to the publication title, click Select, and then click Merge.

Features in January 2013 release

• More than 10 million new publications from JSTOR, Nature, Public Library of Science (PLoS), SSRN, and others (23 publishers added)
• New and simplified home page layout.
• Improved site navigation and browsing capabilities.
• Easier sign in via Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) authentication. We now support Facebook, Yahoo!, and Google sign in.
• Excised/hidden features (Genealogy, h-Index).
• Improved editing UI.
• Simplified Add/Edit/Merge actions.
• Edits to field of study now available on author profile.
• Auto-approval of content changes implemented for faster publishing.
• Crossmark identifier on publication highlights ‘version of record’ link.

Features in December 2011 release

Features in September 2011 release

Features in June 2011 release

Features in March 2011 release

Features in December 2010 release

Features in September 2010 release

Features in July 2010 release

Features in May 2010 release

Features in March 2010 release

Features in December 2009 release

Please send your questions and comments to acadfb@microsoft.com.