Tweeting birds: online mentions predict future citations in ornithology

Abstract

The rapid growth of online tools to communicate scientific research raises the important question of whether online attention is associated with citations in the scholarly literature. The Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) quantifies the attention received by a scientific publication on various online platforms including news, blogs and social media. It has been advanced as a rapid way of gauging the impact of a piece of research, both in terms of potential future scholarly citations and wider online engagement. Here, we explore variation in the AAS of 2677 research articles published in 10 ornithological journals between 2012 and 2016. On average, AAS increased sevenfold in just five years, primarily due to increased activity on Twitter which contributed 75% of the total score. For a subset of 878 articles published in 2014, including an additional 323 ornithology articles from non-specialist journals, an increase in AAS from 1 to 20 resulted in a predicted 112% increase in citation count from 2.6 to 5.5 citations per article. This effect interacted with journal impact factor, with weaker effects of AAS in higher impact factor journals. Our results suggest that altmetrics (or the online activity they measure), as well as complementing traditional measures of scholarly impact in ornithology such as citations, may also anticipate or even drive them.

The online attention to oral cancer research: An Altmetric analysis

“…These findings indicate the immediacy of altmetrics in identifying popular new research and, possibly, predicting future citations (Finch, OHanlon, & Dudley, 2017). It should be acknowledged that Altmetrics and other social media platforms are relatively new, and altmetrics scores, particularly those of older articles, need to be viewed with caution.…”

“…Similar findings were reported by other studies including those from orthodontics (Livas & Delli, ), and even a negative correlation between the publication date and online attention was reported by Zhou et al (). These findings indicate the immediacy of altmetrics in identifying popular new research and, possibly, predicting future citations (Finch, OHanlon, & Dudley, ). It should be acknowledged that Altmetrics and other social media platforms are relatively new, and altmetrics scores, particularly those of older articles, need to be viewed with caution.…”

Sociality enhances survival in science, especially for female researchers

“…These include the role of group level cooperation in acquiring resources, social learning, and the attainment of social status 37 . In line with these ideas, scientists with larger research networks gain more funding 44 and are more highly cited than scientists with fewer co-authors 29,45–48 , while articles mentioned on social media gain more citations 49,50 , suggesting that sociality in science also promotes greater access to resources, knowledge of new research, and leads to higher status among scientific peers. In turn, funding and citation rates are both factors that positively influence career progression and longevity in science 51–54 .…”

#TheTweetingBird: The Rise and Impact of Social Media in Ornithology

“…Peoples et al found that Twitter can predict the citation rate of ecology articles, 1 and our own recent study used Altmetric data to show that not only did online mentions predict future citations in ornithology, but that Twitter contributed 75% of all the altmetrics of ornithology articles. 2 More recently, and more broadly, Ortega showed that papers in journals with their own Twitter accounts are tweeted up to 46% more than papers in journals without a Twitter account, and this activity translated to an up to 34% increase in citations of a journal's own articles. 3 The question I am frequently asked by nonornithologists is how did the (to many, obscure) field of ornithology achieve this?…”

“…Twitter is by far the largest contributor to ornithology articles' altmetrics. Reproduced from Finch et al2 Like many small societies, our resources are very limited and come largely from our small membership and income from our journal. We are therefore very careful about where and on what we spend our finite resources.The digital age has allowed societies to reduce some costs with better use of online communication.…”