Relationship between citation counts and Mendeley readership metrics

Abstract

Purpose – Social media has given way for the development of various new altmetric indicators. Mendeley readership count is one such indicator. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the paper aims to investigate the relationship between citation counts and Mendeley readership counts. The paper also evaluates the relationship between Mendeley readership metrics for two different time periods, thereby investigating its nature as an altmetric indicator. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using the Scopus database. Top 100 papers in Physics published during 2005 as well as in 2010 that received the largest number of citations were selected. Mendeley readership data were collected using Mendeley readership statistics for documents indexed in Scopus. For establishing a relationship between citation counts and Mendeley readership, correlation was calculated between the citations in Scopus database and Mendeley readership. The difference in Mendeley readership for different time periods was also investigated. Findings – The paper showed that for both the years, Mendeley readership counts were in positive correlation with citation counts. For the year 2010, it was found that Mendeley readership counts were in strong positive correlation with citation counts, whereas for 2005, they were in moderate positive correlation. Research limitations/implications – One of the limitations of this paper is that with time more scientists and researchers may join Mendeley causing various changes in data and giving different results. Also, the paper has focused on the highly cited papers in Physics. Originality/value – Very few studies have been conducted in the area of altmetrics, as it is a comparatively new and emerging field of research. The findings of this paper offer insights to the question whether Mendeley readership counts can be used as an alternative to traditional sources of bibliometric indicators like citations, h-index, etc. The paper also evaluates the difference in the nature of traditional bibliometric indicators and Mendeley readership counts.

Bridging the relevance-ranking chasm: mission impossible?

“…On the one hand, this has important benefits with respect to accessibility of knowledge, but on the other, it has potential to further skew rankings. It is likely that open access material will benefit from higher citations than similar standard work that is not immediately made available (Shrivastava and Mahajan, 2016). Open access has to be paid for and universities or researchers themselves are having to pay for this privilege.…”

“…Time is needed for citations to accumulate (Gruber, 2014) and they can be gamed and manipulated (self-citation can be problematic here), and they can artificially reward prolific authors of mediocre papers, Finch (2010). Additionally, groups of researchers may cite each other in order to inflate citation counts (Shrivastava and Mahajan, 2016).…”

“…Impact was defined as 'an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia'" (HEFCE, unknown date). This introduction had a noticeable effect on UK academics' practices (Gruber 2014) but may well be a juxtaposing force to citation metrics, as applied research is believed by some not to be cited as much as purely theoretical work (Thelwall and Delgado, 2015) and may be used rather than cited (Shrivastava and Mahajan, 2016). Indeed, Piercy (2002) managers, something that militates against the pressure to publish in high quality journals.…”

Using Altmetrics as an Engineering Faculty Outreach Tool

“…18,19 Similar research in which metrics from specific platforms (Mendeley, ResearchGate, Twitter, CiteULike) are compared with traditional sources of bibliometrics (generally Scopus or Web of Science) to establish the presence or absence of correlation between traditional bibliometrics and altmetrics are being performed systematically. 11,12,16,[19][20][21][22][23] The Life Sciences post publication peer review site F1000 has been shown to have strong correlations between citations and F1000 article rankings in a cluster of studies. 18 Generally there is little correlation between cited references and altmetrics.…”

“…Twitter for instance, skews young and urban while Mendeley skews academic. 19,35 Depending upon the desired outcome for the professor's research, a specific platform may be a wiser venue for alternative scholarly communication, which will in turn drive the disciplinary professor to select a different altmetric.…”