Usage History of Scientific Literature: Nature Metrics and Metrics of Nature Publications

In this study, we analyze the dynamic usage history of Nature publications over time using Nature metrics data. We conduct analysis from two perspectives. On the one hand, we examine how long it takes before the articles' downloads reach 50%/80% of the total; on the other hand, we compare the percentage of total downloads in 7 days, 30 days, and 100 days after publication. In general, papers are downloaded most frequently within a short time period right after their publication. And we find that compared with Non-Open Access papers, readers' attention on Open Access publications are more enduring. Based on the usage data of a newly published paper, regression analysis could predict the future expected total usage counts.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures and 4 table

Issues in the Interpretation of “Altmetrics” Digital Traces: A Review

Researchers leave traces of their behavior during many stages of their research process. Parts of this process were formerly invisible. With scholarship moving online, we can now access various types of altmetrics digital traces such as reading, organizing, sharing, and discussing scientific papers, thus develop a more holistic story about researchers and their work. However, a lack of in-depth interpretation of altmetrics digital traces is observed. Therefore, this paper focuses on reviewing some of the existing altmetrics research, with a particular emphasis on the issues that need to be taken into consideration in the interpretation of altmetrics digital traces. Taking a preliminary step toward a guideline for more in-depth analysis of digital traces of scholarly acts, this review aims to bring attention to these issues to avoid misuse of altmetrics indicators

UNDERSTANDING THE SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION PROCESS THROUGH DIGITAL TRACES: A STUDY OF TWITTER

Through the lens of the exploratory framework of Digital Trace of Scholarly Acts (DTSA), this dissertation study explored researchers’ activities around scholarly articles on Twitter. Using a mixed-methods design, this study analyzed data collected from a large-scale survey and twenty interviews with researchers on Twitter. The Critical Incident Technique was used as part of the interview study to learn about the full stories behind researchers’ sharing of scholarly articles on Twitter. There were variations in the researcher’s sentiment of opinions on articles they tweeted, retweeted, replied, and liked, based on their demographics. Despite a general positive tendency, researchers’ Twitter activities were associated with different sentiment due to their different perceptions of these activities. Variations were also found in how sharing scholarly articles on Twitter fit into researchers’ scholarly acts workflow with no monolithic pattern. This study contributed to a better understanding of the digital traces left by researchers on Twitter by providing richer descriptions and narratives of their activities. Researchers shared scholarly articles on Twitter for a variety of motivations: networking, promoting, disseminating, commenting, communicating with intended users, acknowledgment, and saving for later reference. The findings particularly shed light on the role of Twitter in communicating research and network building. Investigating the impact of the articles on the researchers led to a better understanding of what types of articles had a higher premium of sharing by researchers on Twitter. Evidence was found to support both the normative theory and the constructivist theory – the categories of impact included connecting, informing, practice-changing, beyond research, and potential impact. However, more than half of the shared articles examined had no impact on the researchers’ own work, indicating that Twitter metrics, even solely based on researchers’ Twitter activities, should not be used as an evaluative metric of the articles shared.Doctor of Philosoph

AnnotationOne: A global annotation system

Our study presents a web‐based annotation tool, AnnotationOne, developed to facilitate the easier creation and global sharing of annotations. Our aim is to create conversations around scholarly content benefitting everyone and forging new connections between scholars. Using this tool, users can read and make globally accessible annotations shared with a large scale of users. User studies were conducted to investigate the utility of this universal annotations system. Subjects completed tasks including making annotations, initial reading with annotations and re‐reading with annotations on our prototype system. Both observations and interviews were conducted to explore whether and how this annotation tool would be beneficial for scholarly communication. Moreover, we also collected subjects' suggestions to improve this tool's usability

Global science discussed in local altmetrics: Weibo and its comparison with Twitter

Local altmetrics is currently an integral part of the altmetrics landscape. This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of microblog altmetrics of the Chinese microblog platform, Weibo, to shed light on cultural differences and draw attention to local altmetrics in developing countries. The analysis is based on 4.4 million records provided by Altmetric.com. Data collected are from March 2014 to July 2015. It is found that Weibo users discuss global science, more actively compared with several international altmetrics sources. Statistical results show strong evidence of the immediacy advantage of metrics based on Weibo as well as Twitter and the general altmetrics over citations. Distribution of Weibo altmetrics on the article level, source level and discipline level are highly skewed. Overall, compared with Twitter, Weibo altmetrics present similar distributions, with some minor variations. To better understand how and why Weibo users discuss global scientific articles, the top weiboed articles, sources and disciplines are identified and further explored. Our content analysis shows that the common motivation of scientific weibos is to disseminate or discuss the articles because they are interesting, surprising, academically useful or practically useful. Conclusion of articles is the most frequently mentioned element in scientific weibos. In addition, different from Twitter, Weibo users have a preference for traditional prestigious journals

The State of Altmetrics: A Tenth Anniversary Celebration

Altmetric’s mission is to help others understand the influence of research online.We collate what people are saying about published research in sources such as the mainstream media, policy documents, social networks, blogs, and other scholarly and non-scholarly forums to provide a more robust picture of the influence and reach of scholarly work. Altmetric works with some of the biggest publishers, funders, businesses and institutions around the world to deliver this data in an accessible and reliable format. Contents Altmetrics, Ten Years Later, Euan Adie (Altmetric (founder) & Overton) Reflections on Altmetrics, Gemma Derrick (University of Lancaster), Fereshteh Didegah (Karolinska Institutet & Simon Fraser University), Paul Groth (University of Amsterdam), Cameron Neylon (Curtin University), Jason Priem (Our Research), Shenmeng Xu (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Zohreh Zahedi (Leiden University) Worldwide Awareness and Use of Altmetrics, Yin-Leng Theng (Nanyang Technological University) Leveraging Machine Learning on Altmetrics Big Data, Saeed-Ul Hassan (Information Technology University), Naif R. Aljohani (King Abdulaziz University), Timothy D. Bowman (Wayne State University) Altmetrics as Social-Spatial Sensors, Vanash M. Patel (West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust), Robin Haunschild (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research), Lutz Bornmann (Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society) Altmetric’s Fable of the Hare and the Tortoise, Mike Taylor (Digital Science) The Future of Altmetrics: A Community Vision, Liesa Ross (Altmetric), Stacy Konkiel (Altmetric