Top 10 Online PhD Research Tools and Websites In 2024

When you start with your doctorate, you put lots of effort into collecting and interpreting relevant information and data to formulate the basis for your research. In this process, you may encounter several fake resources and research tools that might adversely affect your entire doctoral degree.

Due to this reason, it becomes of utmost importance to refer to genuine academic research tools and websites to make citations in your PhD. In this blog, we will discuss the best online academic research websites and tools for a PhD degree. 

Why Do We Need  Online Academic Research Tools for PhD?

Before going deep into various online academic research tools and websites, we must discuss why we need them in the first place only. These websites and research tools greatly help in carrying out the research in the selected area in an organized way.

You can access a wide range of academic literature for your research with the help of academic research tools which enables you to identify the most relevant information for your research. Earlier, this process was very time-consuming as PhD scholars needed to go through various offline tools mainly a large amount of books.

They had to go through page by page to search for relevant information regarding their research. This used to be very time-consuming and monotonous for the PhD scholars. 

With emerging technologies, accessing information regarding anything at any time has become very convenient. You can derive accurate literature regarding your research while saving your time and energy, and formulating a high-quality research output. You will get the right path in your PhD degree with the help of these tools.

Pursuing PhD is a challenging task. It requires sheer commitment from the candidate. This makes it very difficult for working professionals to get an On-campus doctorate. If you are also a working professional and looking for a flexible doctorate program, you must consider an Online DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration). This a 3-year doctoral degree offered by globally accredited universities with a similar weightage to a On-Campus PhD. 

Leading Academic Research Tools and Websites

• Sodhganga:Sodhganga is a digital repository of theses and dissertations submitted to Indian Universities. It is the single largest platform for accessing high-quality research works done previously. PhD Scholars deposit their theses and dissertations and make them available to the scholarly community in their research domain. PhD Scholars can access the thesis and dissertations relevant to their PhD research domain. These serve as guidance for them in proceeding with their own PhD thesis and dissertation making. Suppose you are also a PhD candidate and cannot find an appropriate platform to publish your research work. In that case, you can use the Sodhganga platform to make your thesis public to other scholars in the community. This not only provides wide access to scholarly information but also provides recognition of the research works of numerous researchers.

• Google Scholar:Apart from the general search engine, Google has a dedicated search engine for academic literature and resources, popularly known as Google Scholar. It has lots of similarities with Google Search but it offers scholarly information and materials instead of public web content. If you are looking for articles, theses, books, and abstracts from the most reliable resources such as Academic publishers, Professional societies, Online repositories, Universities, and Other websites, then Google Scholar could be a one-stop destination for you. All the resources present on Google Scholar are ranked according to their relevance to the topics searched by the user. Most of the resources on Google Scholar can be easily downloaded in PhD form with the DOI (Digital Object Identifier)number attached to them.

• Research Gate:Research Gate is a networking site for renowned scientists and academicians around the world. They upload their research papers in diverse areas and examine the works of fellow scientists and academicians. If you are looking for articles and papers on any particular topic, you can freely access them on Researchgate. At present, researchgate is being used by more than 20 million researchers all over the world. Researchgate has over 135 million publications which are continuously accessed by the users for their research purposes. 

• JSTOR:JSTOR also known as Journal Storage is a digital library of a wide range of academic subjects. It contains over 1,50,000 ebooks and journals from the top academic publishers. With the help of JSTOR, you will be able to access content from a variety of academic disciplines. You will also get access to peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academic monographs, literary journals, numerous primary sources, and research reports from trusted institutes at JSTOR. 

• Journal Finder:Journal Finder is a research tool that allows researchers to find and access journals and articles that may be a good fit for their research.If you are a PhD scholar who needs access to journals and articles for your research work you can refer to these journal finder tools mentioned below:

• Elsevier Journal Finder
• Wiley Journal Finder
• CW Authors Journal Finder
• Taylor & Francis Journal Suggester

You can use your research topic's keywords, titles, and abstracts to find journals and articles. These journal finders help you to find the full text of an appropriate article if you have the author's name, date, and title. 

• Google Books:Google Books is a kind of digital library that facilitates its users to search, download, preview, and read books. This tool can be very useful for the PhD scholars in their research works. You will be able to find the latest as well as out-of-print books on Google Books. You can access numerous books by simply using search terms and keywords. You will be able to download over 10 million books available in the public domain with full text. However, you can only preview those books that are under copyright. Google Books may turn out to the a great source for reference in the the PhD research. Instead of visiting offline libraries and searching for books, you can save valuable time by using Google Books. 

• PubMed Central:PhD students pursuing their doctorate in biomedicine or life sciences can find free digital literature at PubMed Central. It is a free digital archive developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) to aid biomedical and life sciences students.You can get a broad collection of full-text articles that cover domains such as medicine, biology, health policy, and many more. You will have seamless access to both abstracts and full-text articles. This is a highly comprehensive repository for the global scientific community that fosters innovation, collaboration, and knowledge dissemination. 

•  National Digital Library of India (NDLI):The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. It is an initiative by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. NDLI was developed for students, researchers, and lifelong learners across various disciplines to offer them a comprehensive digital repository of diverse educational resources. This platform can greatly help you in your PhD. Here you will vast collection of books, articles, theses, audio, and video lectures, sourced from multiple institutions worldwide in the field of your research. The platform also caters to differently-abled students as well. With the help of NDLI, you will be able to access different publishers, libraries, and institutions on a single platform for your research. 

•  Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ):If you are looking for high-quality, peer-reviewed journals you must pay a visit to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It is a comprehensive online database that was launched in 2003. The main for launching this was to increase the visibility and accessibility of research across various disciplines by listing journals that adhere to rigorous standards for open-access publishing. You will access research articles across a wide range of academic disciplines such as sciences, humanities, and social sciences. You are not required to pay any fee or take any subscription for accessing the research findings. You will get reliable and openly accessible academic content that is available with transparency. 

• Indian Citation Index (ICI):Most of the PhD scholars need help with citations. They need to be made aware of citation and analytics matrics while writing their PhD thesis. If you are also one of those PhD Scholars, you will be greatly aided by the Indian Citation Index (ICI). You will be able to track the quality of research conducted in India. You can access a bibliographic database with citations and abstracts from over 1100 academic journals in India. This tool will be highly beneficial in your PhD Journey.

Conclusion

All the research websites and tools mentioned above are highly beneficial for the smooth PhD journey. You will get remarkable aid and guidance through these research tools while pursuing a PhD. If you want to conduct high-quality original research that can contribute to the field of knowledge in your selected domain, you need to be handy with these extensive research tools.