Altmetric Versus Bibliometric Perspective Regarding Publication Impact and Force

Abstract

BackgroundBibliometric and Altmetric analyses highlight key publications, which have been considered to be the most influential in their field. The hypothesis was that highly cited articles would correlate positively with levels of evidence and Altmetric scores (AS) and rank.MethodsSurgery as a search term was entered into Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science database to identify all English-language full articles. The 100 most cited articles were analysed by topic, journal, author, year, institution, and AS.ResultsBy bibliometric criteria, eligible articles numbered 286,122 and the median (range) citation number was 574 (446–5746). The most cited article (Dindo et al.) classified surgical complications by severity score (5746 citations). Annals of Surgery published most articles and received most citations (26,457). The country and year with most publications were the USA (n = 50) and 1999 (n = 11). By Altmetric criteria, the article with the highest AS was by Bigelow et al. (AS = 53, hypothermia’s role in cardiac surgery); Annals of Surgery published most articles, and the country and year with most publications were USA (n = 4) and 2007 (n = 3). Level-1-evidence articles numbered 13, but no correlation was found between evidence level and citation number (SCC 0.094, p = 0.352) or AS (SCC = 0.149, p = 0.244). Median AS was 0 (0–53), and in articles published after the year 2000, AS was associated with citation number (r = 0.461, p = 0.001) and citation rate index (r = 0.455, p = 0.002). AS was not associated with journal impact factor (r = 0.160, p = 0.118).ConclusionBibliometric and Altmetric analyses provide important but different perspectives regarding article impact, which are unrelated to evidence level.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00268-018-4579-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cross-sectional analysis of bibliometrics and altmetrics: comparing the impact of qualitative and quantitative articles in the British Medical Journal

“…In a variety of fields, individuals have evaluated impact using bibliometrics and altmetrics to determine research interests of the members of the public and of the scientific community. [39][40][41][42][43] In 2018, Powell et al compared the altmetric score and bibliometric data of the 100 most cited articles in Open access surgery and found, similar to our study, that bibliometric and altmetric analyses provide important but different perspectives on article impact. 43 Altmetrics offered the unique advantage of timely assessment of articles generating discussions online and positively correlated with citation numbers.…”

Relative Value of Adapted Novel Bibliometrics in Evaluating Surgical Academic Impact and Reach

“…The London based Altmetric.com , one of the original companies in this field, has since 2011, tracked mentions of published articles in sources ranging from social media, Wikipedia, to government policy. 19,20,21 A number of potential limitations and confounding factors are inherent to studies of this type and have been highlighted previously. 5 Obtaining precise bibliographic metrics is dependent on accurately identifying authors and affiliations, but researchers often change or use different initials and affiliations risking skewing results.…”

“…17,18 Altmetric Scores Altmetric Scores (AS) for all papers published since 2011 were collected and the methodology used has been described previously (https://www.altmetric.com/products/ free-tools/bookmarklet/). [19][20][21] An adapted calculation or AS-index was also calculated akin to the h-index, substituting the number of citations for the AS. Hence an individual has an AS-index of 10, if they have 10 articles that have received at least 10 altmetric citations.…”

What can we learn from top-cited articles in inflammatory bowel disease? A bibliometric analysis and assessment of the level of evidence

“… 12 Furthermore, several other researchers have used Web of Science to identify top-cited articles. 13–15 …”

“…The assessment required extensive review of each article since quality descriptors exist for different types of studies and level of evidence vary depending on therapeutic, prevention, prognostic, diagnostic or prevalence design. 13 14 …”