An Assessment of Impact Metrics’ Potential as Research Indicators Based on Their Perception, Usage, and Dependencies from External Science Communication

The demand for practicable methods for quantitative assessments of scientific products’ relevance has risen considerably over the past decades. As a consequence, research and commercial providers of scholarly data developed a wide variety of impact indicators, ranging from citation-based to so-called altmetrics. This highly heterogeneous family of indicators is based on the principle of measuring interactions with scientific publications that are observable online, and covers for instance mentions of publications in social and journalistic media, in literature management software, or in policy documents. The various metrics' theoretical validity as impact indicators is debated constantly, as questions regarding what it is that different metrics measure or express in many facets remain unanswered. This thesis makes two central contributions towards answering these questions. Its first part systematically assesses the status quo of various metrics’ perception and usage by researchers. This assessment serves to determine the significance of metrics in academic daily routines, as well as to identify relevant perceived problems concerning their usage. The challenges identified this way are in later sections of the thesis opposed with concrete measures to be taken during the development of future research metrics and their infrastructure to effectively solve common criticisms regarding current metrics and their use. Proceeding from the first part’s user studies, this thesis’ second part examines the relationship between research metrics and external science communication. It this way addresses a wide research gap with considerable potential implications for metrics’ validity as indicators for quality - the question to which degree these metrics are merely the result of promotion, which respective research publications receive

Conjoint analysis of researchers' hidden preferences for bibliometrics, altmetrics, and usage metrics

The amount of annually published scholarly articles is growing steadily, as is the number of indicators through which impact of publications is measured. Little is known about how the increasing variety of available metrics affects researchers' processes of selecting literature to read. We conducted ranking experiments embedded into an online survey with 247 participating researchers, most from social sciences. Participants completed series of tasks in which they were asked to rank fictitious publications regarding their expected relevance, based on their scores regarding six prototypical metrics. Through applying logistic regression, cluster analysis, and manual coding of survey answers, we obtained detailed data on how prominent metrics for research impact influence our participants in decisions about which scientific articles to read. Survey answers revealed a combination of qualitative and quantitative characteristics that researchers consult when selecting literature, while regression analysis showed that among quantitative metrics, citation counts tend to be of highest concern, followed by Journal Impact Factors. Our results suggest a comparatively favorable view of many researchers on bibliometrics and widespread skepticism toward altmetrics. The findings underline the importance of equipping researchers with solid knowledge about specific metrics' limitations, as they seem to play significant roles in researchers' everyday relevance assessments

The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

Social media metrics for new research evaluation

This chapter approaches, both from a theoretical and practical perspective, the most important principles and conceptual frameworks that can be considered in the application of social media metrics for scientific evaluation. We propose conceptually valid uses for social media metrics in research evaluation. The chapter discusses frameworks and uses of these metrics as well as principles and recommendations for the consideration and application of current (and potentially new) metrics in research evaluation.Comment: Forthcoming in Glanzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch U., Thelwall, M. (2018). Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springe

Altmetrics: State of the Art and a Look into the Future

The development of alternative indicators (altmetrics) can be traced back to a discussion a few years ago where the central question was: does the focus on classical bibliometric indicators still adequately reflect the scientific and social significance of scientific work in the Internet age? In the course of this discussion, the term “altmetrics” was introduced as a collective term for all those indicators that contain previously unnoticed information from the Internet—especially concerning social media. Altmetrics shed light on the reception of scientific publications in news websites as well as in scientific blogs, policy papers, and other web-based content. This chapter deals with the current state of the art of altmetrics, focusing on the present discussion about the informative value of altmetrics. Furthermore, we investigate to what extent altmetrics can be used in scientific evaluations. We conclude our chapter with an outlook on the potential prospects for success of altmetrics in different fields of application

Altmetrics and societal impact measurements: Match or mismatch? A literature review

Can alternative metrics (altmetrics) data be used to measure societal impact? We wrote this literature overview of empirical studies in order to find an answer to this question. The overview includes two parts. The first part, “societal impact measurements”, explains possible methods and problems in measuring the societal impact of research, case studies for societal impact measurement, societal impact considerations at funding organizations, and the societal problems that should be solved by science. The second part of the review, “altmetrics”, addresses a major question in research evaluation, which is whether altmetrics are proper indicators for measuring the societal impact of research. In the second part we explain the data sources used for altmetrics studies and the importance of field-normalized indicators for impact measurements. This review indicates that it should be relevant for impact measurements to be oriented towards pressing societal problems. Case studies in which societal impact of certain pieces of research is explained seem to provide a legitimate method for measuring societal impact. In the use of altmetrics, field-specific differences should be considered by applying field normalization (in cross-field comparisons). Altmetrics data such as social media counts might mainly reflect the public interest and discussion of scholarly works rather than their societal impact. Altmetrics (Twitter data) might be especially fruitfully employed for research evaluation purposes, if they are used in the context of network approaches. Conclusions based on altmetrics data in research evaluation should be drawn with caution

Do altmetrics correlate with citations? Extensive comparison of altmetric indicators with citations from a multidisciplinary perspective

An extensive analysis of the presence of different altmetric indicators provided by Altmetric.com across scientific fields is presented, particularly focusing on their relationship with citations. Our results confirm that the presence and density of social media altmetric counts are still very low and not very frequent among scientific publications, with 15%-24% of the publications presenting some altmetric activity and concentrating in the most recent publications, although their presence is increasing over time. Publications from the social sciences, humanities and the medical and life sciences show the highest presence of altmetrics, indicating their potential value and interest for these fields. The analysis of the relationships between altmetrics and citations confirms previous claims of positive correlations but relatively weak, thus supporting the idea that altmetrics do not reflect the same concept of impact as citations. Also, altmetric counts do not always present a better filtering of highly cited publications than journal citation scores. Altmetrics scores (particularly mentions in blogs) are able to identify highly cited publications with higher levels of precision than journal citation scores (JCS), but they have a lower level of recall. The value of altmetrics as a complementary tool of citation analysis is highlighted, although more research is suggested to disentangle the potential meaning and value of altmetric indicators for research evaluation

Theories of Informetrics and Scholarly Communication

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published "The need for a theory of citing" —a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact