How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of ‘alternative metrics’ in scientific publications

Abstract

In this paper an analysis of the presence and possibilities of altmetrics for bibliometric and performance analysis is carried out. Using the web based tool Impact Story, we collected metrics for 20,000 random publications from the Web of Science. We studied both the presence and distribution of altmetrics in the set of publications, across fields, document types and over publication years, as well as the extent to which altmetrics correlate with citation indicators. The main result of the study is that the altmetrics source that provides the most metrics is Mendeley, with metrics on readerships for 62.6% of all the publications studied, other sources only provide marginal information. In terms of relation with citations, a moderate spearman correlation (r=0.49) has been found between Mendeley readership counts and citation indicators. Other possibilities and limitations of these indicators are discussed and future research lines are outlined.

Social media and research: an assessment of the coverage of South African universities in ResearchGate, Web of Science and the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities

“…All the aforementioned studies, among others, have shown that altmetrics (and more particularly downloads) are in correlation with citation statistics. For instance, Zahedi, Costas and Wouters (2014) found a moderate Spearman correlation between Mendely readership counts and citation indicators in their study entitled 'How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of "alternative metrics" in scientific publications'.…”

Are Mendeley reader counts high enough for research evaluations when articles are published?

“…A more finegrained alternative is to exploit a faster-growing source of impact evidence from the web for article-level indicators (Priem, Taraborelli, Groth, & Neylon, 2011; or both options can be combined: Haustein & Siebenlist, 2011). Of the various alternative indicators (altmetrics) that have been proposed, Mendeley reader counts are the most promising for early impact evidence because of their relatively high correlations with citation counts and early appearance (Zahedi, Costas, & Wouters, 2014). Although tweets may appear sooner, they are much less reliable for impact indicators (Haustein, Larivière, Thelwall, Amyot, & Peters, 2014;Thelwall, Haustein, Larivière, & Sugimoto, 2013).…”

The impact of open access on the medical literature: a review of current literature

“…Seven studies investigated the correlation between altmetrics and downloads/ citations claimed positive correlations but relatively weak, thus supporting the idea that altmetrics do not reflect the same concept of impact as citations (105,108,109,(111)(112)(113)(114). Peters (109), Bar-Ilan (113) and Xuemei (114) found the Mendeley as the most powerful tool for articles sampling.…”