7 of the Best Searching Education Portal

 Where do you seek data for research papers or class projects? If you’re like many college students, the research process begins and ends with Google.

You’re certainly not alone. Google has dominated the market for two decades, and for good reason: It’s notoriously easy to use. Unfortunately, ease of use doesn’t imply accuracy—and as a college student operating within a vast digital landscape, you need to feel confident that every resource you utilize is reputable.

Thankfully, Google represents just one of many available resources. Several academic best searching education portal engines offer targeted results and access to the most relevant journals, citations, and other resources. These websites can transform the otherwise arduous process of gathering data.

As you embark on your next big paper or project, don’t hesitate to check out one or more of these Best Searching Education Portal

7 Great Educational Search Engines for Students

1. Google Scholar

You love everything about Google—especially its intuitive design and pages upon pages of results. But have you stopped to consider whether the information you find there is accurate? While the search engine’s current algorithm purports to emphasize quality over keyword stuffing and other metrics, you are by no means guaranteed results worthy of inclusion in your next term paper.

2. Microsoft Academic

A top alternative to Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic relaunched in 2016 following a disappointing run that petered out in 2012. Thankfully, the 2.0 version offers excellent results while optimizing the search process. This resource utilizes a concept known as semantic search to take the actual meaning of words and phrases into account rather than relying exclusively on keywords.

3. Educational Resources Information Center

A top resource for aspiring teachers and other professionals, the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) boasts a massive database containing over 1.3 million bibliographic records such as abstracts and citations. Some of these date back to the 1960s. Resources from peer-reviewed journals dominate the digital collection, but ERIC also provides access to a variety of non-journal documents

4. Research Gate

Trusted by over 16 million researchers, this top search engine currently provides results from over 135 million publications. The site was founded in 2008 by two physicians and a computer scientist. Since then, it has exploded as both a social network and a leading source of academic information.

5. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

Operated by the Bielefeld University Library, the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) draws from over 7,000 sources to provide users access to over 150 million documents. Paid subscriptions provide the greatest value, but open access users can still look to the academic search engine for journals, digital collections, and more.

6. Connecting Repositories

The Knowledge Media Institute’s COnnecting REpositories (CORE) aims to aggregate open access content currently distributed across a variety of journals and repositories. Created in 2011, the original edition addressed concerns related to text mining for large collections of academic material. Since then, the service has expanded to feature over 45 terabytes of textual data. This includes hundreds of millions of research papers aggregated from nearly 10,000 data providers in 145 countries. Users can access CORE’s information free of charge.

7. Semantic Scholar

Drawing on the power of artificial intelligence concepts such as natural language processing and machine learning, Semantic Scholar strives to up the ante for academic research sites. This AI-driven resource pulls information from over 184 million scientific papers. This information is then linked to provide users a comprehensive take on a variety of cutting-edge topics.