113 research outputs found
Grand challenges in altmetrics : heterogeneity, data quality and dependencies
With increasing uptake among researchers, social media are finding their way into
scholarly communication and, under the umbrella term altmetrics, are starting to be utilized in
research evaluation. Fueled by technological possibilities and an increasing demand to
demonstrate impact beyond the scientific community, altmetrics have received great attention
as potential democratizers of the scientific reward system and indicators of societal impact. This
paper focuses on the current challenges for altmetrics. Heterogeneity, data quality and particular dependencies are identified as the three major issues and discussed in detail with an
emphasis on past developments in bibliometrics. The heterogeneity of altmetrics reflects the
diversity of the acts and online events, most of which take place on social media platforms. This
heterogeneity has made it difficult to establish a common definition or conceptual framework.
Data quality issues become apparent in the lack of accuracy, consistency and replicability of
various altmetrics, which is largely affected by the dynamic nature of social media events.
Furthermore altmetrics are shaped by technical possibilities and are particularly dependent on
the availability of APIs and DOIs, strongly dependent on data providers and aggregators, and
potentially influenced by the technical affordances of underlying platforms
What makes papers visible on social media? An analysis of various document characteristics
In this study we have investigated the relationship between different
document characteristics and the number of Mendeley readership counts, tweets,
Facebook posts, mentions in blogs and mainstream media for 1.3 million papers
published in journals covered by the Web of Science (WoS). It aims to
demonstrate that how factors affecting various social media-based indicators
differ from those influencing citations and which document types are more
popular across different platforms. Our results highlight the heterogeneous
nature of altmetrics, which encompasses different types of uses and user groups
engaging with research on social media.Comment: Presented at the 21th International Conference in Science &
Technology Indicators (STI), 13-16, September, 2016, Valencia, Spai
On the relationships between bibliographic characteristics of scientific documents and citation and Mendeley readership counts: A large-scale analysis of Web of Science publications
In this paper we present a first large-scale analysis of the relationship
between Mendeley readership and citation counts with particular documents
bibliographic characteristics. A data set of 1.3 million publications from
different fields published in journals covered by the Web of Science (WoS) has
been analyzed. This work reveals that document types that are often excluded
from citation analysis due to their lower citation values, like editorial
materials, letters, or news items, are strongly covered and saved in Mendeley,
suggesting that Mendeley readership can reliably inform the analysis of these
document types. Findings show that collaborative papers are frequently saved in
Mendeley, which is similar to what is observed for citations. The relationship
between readership and the length of titles and number of pages, however, is
weaker than for the same relationship observed for citations. The analysis of
different disciplines also points to different patterns in the relationship
between several document characteristics, readership, and citation counts.
Overall, results highlight that although disciplinary differences exist,
readership counts are related to similar bibliographic characteristics as those
related to citation counts, reinforcing the idea that Mendeley readership and
citations capture a similar concept of impact, although they cannot be
considered as equivalent indicators
A multidimensional analysis of Aslib proceedings – using everything but the impact factor
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the journal impact factor (IF) is not able to reflect
the full impact of scholarly journals and provides an overview of alternative and complementary
methods in journal evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach – Aslib Proceedings (AP) is exemplarily analyzed with a set of
indicators from five dimensions of journal evaluation, i.e. journal output, content, perception and usage,
citations and management to accurately reflect its various strengths and weaknesses beyond the IF.
Findings – AP has become more international in terms of authors and more diverse regarding its
topics. Citation impact is generally low and, with the exception of a special issue on blogs, remains
world average. However, an evaluation of downloads and Mendeley readers reveals that the journal is
an important source of information for professionals and students and certain topics are frequently
read but not cited.
Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to one journal.
Practical implications – An overview of various indicators and methods is provided that can be
applied in the quantitative evaluation of scholarly journals (and also to articles, authors and institutions).
Originality/value – After a publication history of more than 60 years, this analysis takes stock of AP,
highlighting strengths and weaknesses and developments over time. The case study provides an
example and overview of the possibilities of multidimensional journal evaluation
A climate of sharing : Who are the users engaging with climate research on Twitter?
altmetrics18: Science & the public : public interactions with science through the lens of social medi
Mendeley as a Source of Readership by Students and Postdocs? Evaluating Article Usage by Academic Status
This paper explores readership counts provided by the social reference manager Mendeley as a source for usage statistics for scientific papers, based on a sample of 1.2 million documents published in journals from the four disciplines Biomedical Research, Clinical Medicine, Health and Psychology. It is shown that the percentage of papers with at least one user on Mendeley (65.9%) as well as the average number of readers per document (9.6) is quite high compared to the uptake and average activity on other social media platforms. The majority of users are PhD and postgraduate students as well as postdocs. Correlations with citations are overall positive, with reading patterns of PhD students and postdocs being in general more similar to citation patterns than that of other professionals and librarians, which reflects expected usage behavior. Important differences concerning these results can be observed between particular research fields, reflecting the particular usage patterns of certain user groups as well as the general uptake of Mendeley in these fields. Most importantly it is shown that differences between usage behavior of user types cannot be accurately determined, as Mendeley only provides only the top 3 user types per document
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