Microsoft Academic Search was a research project and academic search engine retired in 2012. It relaunched in 2016 as Academic.

History

Microsoft launched a search tool called Windows Live Academic Search in 2006 to directly compete with Google Scholar.[1] It was renamed Live Search Academic after its first year and then discontinued two years later.[2] In 2009, Microsoft Research Asia Group launched a beta tool called Libra in 2009, which was for the purpose of algorithms research in object-level vertical search,[3] data mining, entity linking, and data visualization.[4] Libra was redirected to the MAS service by 2011 and contained 27.2 million records for books, conference papers, and journals.[2]

Although largely functional, the service was not intended to be a production website and ceased to be developed, as was originally intended when the research goals of the project had been met.[5] The service stopped being updated in 2012.[6][7] The fact that this decline was not reported on earlier indicated to the authors that the service was largely ignored by academics and bibliometricians alike.[7]

In July 2014, Microsoft Research announced that Microsoft Academic was evolving from a research project to a production service, and would be integrating with Microsoft's flagship search engine, Bing, and its intelligent personal assistant service, Cortana. “By growing Microsoft Academic Search from a research effort to production,” [Microsoft Research's Kuansan] Wang says, “our goal is to make Bing-powered Cortana the best personal research assistant for our users".[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Carlson, Scott (April 2006). "Challenging Google, Microsoft Unveils a Search Tool for Scholarly Articles". Chronicle of Higher Education. 52 (33): A43. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  2. ^ a b Jacsó, Péter (2011). "The pros and cons of Microsoft Academic Search from a bibliometric perspective". Online Information Review. 35 (6): 983–997. doi:10.1108/14684521111210788.
  3. ^ "Microsoft Research News: Search Objective Gets a Refined Approach". Microsoft Research. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
  4. ^ "Microsoft Research Projects - Academic Search". Microsoft Research. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
  5. ^ "About Microsoft Academic Search". Microsoft Research. Archived from the original on February 13, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
  6. ^ "Microsoft Academic Search FAQ". Archived from the original on January 5, 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  7. ^ a b Orduna-Malea, Enrique; Juan Manuel Ayllon; Martin-Martin, Alberto; Emilio Delgado Lopez-Cozar (2014). "Empirical Evidences in Citation-Based Search Engines: Is Microsoft Academic Search dead?". Online Information Review. 38 (7): 936. arXiv:1404.7045. doi:10.1108/OIR-07-2014-0169. S2CID 51985965.
  8. ^ "Making Cortana the Researcher's Dream Assistant". Retrieved March 15, 2015.

External links