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PolyU Library

Building & Real Estate

Your starting point for research and study in the area of building & real estate.

Tutorial - Get full text beyond PolyU Library

How to use Interlibrary Loan Services to request research materials not held in the Library?

ILL Video

PIRA (PolyU Institutional Research Archive)

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PolyU Institutional Research Archive (PIRA) is an open access repository for The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s research, teaching and learning digital materials.

Find Open Access Journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is an online directory providing access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
 

Find Journal Articles

Google Scholar vs OneSearch vs Databases

Generally, there are three ways to find articles:

  • Google Scholar is a quick search tool when you have an article title in hand, but may not give you very relevant results if your keywords are very broad. 
  • OneSearch is a one-stop search of Library's subscribed resources, most of which are scholarly materials. However, sometimes you may still find too many results when your keywords are not specific enough.
  • Database contains specialized materials, e.g. specialized in one subject area such as engineering, or specialized in one type of resources such as journal articles, books, or standards documents. 

Learn how to search more effectively from this guide Build an Effective Search Statement.

Find Peer-reviewed Journal Articles from OneSearch

Follow the steps below to find peer-reviewed journal articles in OneSearch:

  1. Input keywords or a searching statement in OneSearch from the Library homepage.
  2. Refine results to Peer-reviewed Journals and Articles. You can also make use of other filters on the sidebar to further refine your results, e.g. within a publication year range.
  3. Click on the links provided to get access to full text. More tips to read full text here. Sign in with your NetID and NetPassword if you are accessing off-campus.

Google Scholar@PolyU

To search articles in Google Scholar, we suggest that you access Google Scholar via the Library homepage, especially when you are out of campus. By doing this, you will be able to directly access the full text of the articles (that we have subscriptions to) through PolyU eLinks.

Follow the steps below:

  1. Visit the Library homepage and switch to the Articles tag.
  2. Click on Google Scholar@PolyU. Sign in with your NetID and NetPassword if you are out of campus.

     
  3. Conduct a search in Google Scholar. The article within our collection will be provided with the "PolyU eLinks" option, which allows you to access full text from the Library.

For the article not available in our collection, you can try to request it using our Interlibrary Loan & document delivery service.  We will then help you find the material from other libraries and suppliers. Watch a video tutorial to learn how to place a request.

Alternatively, you may change the setting in your Google Scholar to link it up with Library subscribed databases. This is identical to clicking on Google Scholar@PolyU via Library homepage.

Article Databases

Recommended Journals (from Course Resource List)

Journal Title
in alphabetical order		 Web of Science Indexing* Impact Factor - 2021
Advanced Engineering Informatics  SCIE 7.862
Automation in Construction SCIE 10.517
Building and Environment SCIE 7.093
Building Research and Information SCIE 4.799
Cities SSCI 6.077
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management SCIE & SSCI 3.850
Habitat International SSCI 5.205
International Journal of Project Management SSCI 9.037
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research SSCI 3.732
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering SCIE 5.802
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management SCIE 5.292
Journal of Contemporary China SSCI 3.126
Journal of Management in Engineering SCIE 6.415
Journal of Portfolio Management SSCI 1.530
Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics SSCI 1.480
Journal of Real Estate Research SSCI 1.825
Real Estate Economics SSCI 3.154
Sustainable Cities and Society SCIE 10.696

Source: These journals are selected from BRE course readings that are indexed in SCIE or SSCI in Journal Citation Reports. 
Last updated: Jun 2022. 
* SCIE = Science Citation Index Expanded; SSCI = Social Sciences Citation Index.