scholarly journals Altmetrics: New indicators for scientific communication in Web 2.0

Comunicar ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (41) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Torres-Salinas ◽  
Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo ◽  
Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras

In this paper we review the socalled altmetrics or alternative metrics. This concept raises from the development of new indicators based on Web 2.0, for the evaluation of the research and academic activity. The basic assumption is that variables such as mentions in blogs, number of twits or of researchers bookmarking a research paper for instance, may be legitimate indicators for measuring the use and impact of scientific publications. In this sense, these indicators are currently the focus of the bibliometric community and are being discussed and debated. We describe the main platforms and indicators and we analyze as a sample the Spanish research output in Communication Studies. Comparing traditional indicators such as citations with these new indicators. The results show that the most cited papers are also the ones with a highest impact according to the altmetrics. We conclude pointing out the main shortcomings these metrics present and the role they may play when measuring the research impact through 2.0 platforms. En el presente trabajo se realiza una revisión de las altmetrics o indicadores alternativos. Este concepto se define como la creación y estudio de nuevos indicadores, basados en la web 2.0, para el análisis de la actividad científica y académica. La idea que subyace es que, por ejemplo, las menciones en blogs, el número de tuits o el de personas que guardan un artículo en su gestor de referencias puede ser una medida válida del uso y repercusión de las publicaciones científicas. En este sentido, estas medidas se han situado en el centro del debate de los estudios bibliométricos cobrando especial relevancia. En el artículo se ilustran en primer lugar las plataformas e indicadores principales de este tipo de medidas, para posteriormente estudiar un conjunto de trabajos del ámbito de la comunicación, comparando el número de citas recibidas con sus indicadores 2.0. Los resultados señalan que los artículos más citados de la disciplina en los últimos años también presentan indicadores significativamente más elevados de altmetrics. Seguidamente se realiza un repaso por los principales estudios empíricos realizados, deteniéndonos en las correlaciones entre indicadores bibliométricos y alternativos. Se finaliza, a modo de reflexión, señalando las principales limitaciones y el papel que las altmetrics pueden desempeñar a la hora de captar la repercusión de la investigación en las plataformas de la web 2.0.

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Castro Gouveia

Resumo Métricas baseadas em citações têm sido historicamente utilizadas para avaliação da produção científica. Entretanto, diante da revolução da Web 2.0 surge uma Cientometria 2.0, que busca celeridade na percepção do impacto das publicações científicas, bem como de campos emergentes e estratégicos. Neste contexto se inserem os estudos com métricas alternativas (altmétricas) que tem o potencial de aprimorar o entendimento das dinâmicas de citação, levando em consideração o contexto e o papel das diferentes publicações na academia. Neste artigo apresentamos uma discussão sobre o campo da “altmetria” propondo sua definição como uso de dados webométricos e cibermétricos em estudos cientométricos.Palavras-chave Altmetria, Cibermetria, Webometria, Cientometria, Bibliometria.Abstract Citations based metrics have historically been used to evaluate scientific production. However, before the revolution of Web 2.0 arises Scientometrics 2.0, which seeks to expedite the perception of the impact of scientific publications, as well as strategic and emerging fields. In this context fall within studies with alternative metrics (altmetrics) that has the potential to enhance the understanding of the citation dynamics, taking into account the context and the scholarly role of different publications. This article presents a discussion on the field of “altmetrics” proposing its definition as webometrics and cybermetrics data usage in scientometric studies.Keywords Altmetrics, Cybermetrics, Webometrics, Scientometrics, Bibliometrics


2021 ◽  
pp. 003072702110242
Author(s):  
Max Rünzel ◽  
Paolo Sarfatti ◽  
Svetlana Negroustoueva

When evaluating Quality of Science (QoS) in the context of development initiatives, it is essential to define adequate criteria. The objective of this perspective paper is to show how altmetric and bibliometric indicators have been used to support the evaluation of QoS in the 2020 Review of the Phase 2-CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs, 2017–2022), where, for the first time, the Quality of Research for Development (QoR4D) frame of reference has been utilized across the entire CGIAR CRP portfolio. Overall, the CRP review showed a significant output of scientific publications during the period 2017–2020, with 4,872 articles, 220,101 references, and 7.1 citations per article. Additionally, wider interest in scientific publications is demonstrated by good to high altmetrics, with average attention scores ranging from 70.8 to 806.9 with an average of 425.1. The use of selected bibliometrics was shown to be an adequate tool, for use together with other qualitative indicators to evaluate the QoS in the 12 CRPs. The CRP review process clearly demonstrated that standardized, harmonized and consistent data on research output is paramount to provide high-quality quantitative instruments and should be a priority throughout the transition toward One CGIAR. Therefore, we conclude that the QoR4D framework should be augmented by standardized bibliometric indicators embedded in measurement frameworks within the new One CGIAR. Finally, its practical utilization in monitoring and evaluation should be supported with clear guidelines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 717-736
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Kowalska-Chrzanowska ◽  
Przemysław Krysiński

Purpose This paper aims to answer the question of how the Polish representatives of social communication and media sciences communicate the most recent scientific findings in the media space, i.e. what types of publications are shared, what activities do they exemplify (sharing information about their own publications, leading discussions, formulating opinions), what is the form of the scientific communication created by them (publication of reference lists' descriptions, full papers, preprints and post prints) and what is the audience reception (number of downloads, displays, comments). Design/methodology/approach The authors present the results of analysis conducted on the presence of the most recent (2017–2019) publications by the Polish representatives of the widely understood social communication and media sciences in three selected social networking services for scientists: ResearchGate, Google Scholar and Academia.edu. The analyses covered 100 selected representatives of the scientific environment (selected in interval sampling), assigned, according to the OECD classification “Field of Science”, in the “Ludzie nauki” (Men of Science) database to the “media and communication” discipline. Findings The conducted analyses prove a low usage level of the potential of three analysed services for scientists by the Polish representatives of social communication and media sciences. Although 60% of them feature profiles in at least one of the services, the rest are not present there at all. From the total of 113 identified scientists' profiles, as little as 65 feature publications from 2017 to 2019. Small number of alternative metrics established in them, implies, in turn, that if these metrics were to play an important role in evaluation of the value and influence of scientific publications, then this evaluation for the researched Polish representatives of social communication and media sciences would be unfavourable. Originality/value The small presence of the Polish representatives of the communication and media sciences in three analysed services shows that these services may be – for the time being – only support the processes of managing own scientific output. Maybe this quite a pessimistic image of scientists' activities in the analysed services is conditioned by a simple lack of the need to be present in electronic channels of scientific communication or the lack of trust to the analysed services, which, in turn, should be linked to their shortcomings and flaws. However, unequivocal confirmation of these hypotheses might be brought by explorations covering a larger group of scientists, and complemented with survey studies. Thus, this research may constitute merely a starting point for further explorations, including elaboration of good practices with respect to usage of social media by scientists.


2018 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 05002
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Cortes ◽  
Denise Depoortere ◽  
Lucina Malaver

The skies of Northern Chile are considered among the best in the world for astronomy due to their geographical, climatic and atmospheric conditions. In fact, during the last several decades, a great number of astronomical observatories have been built by space research institutions devoted to space research, turning Chile into one of the countries with the greatest astronomical observation capacity in the world. Consequently, it is relevant to explore and assess the development of astronomy in Chile during the last ten years (2005-2015), carrying out a bibliometric analysis to extract traditional metrics, complemented with alternative metrics, to identify the Chilean production and scientific contribution of research in this field of knowledge. The results from traditional metrics, based on the information obtained in the Web of Science (WoS) database analyzed through InCites for the Astronomy & Astrophysics category indicate a sustained increase of the scientific production for the discipline during the last ten years. In particular, the Normalized Citation Impact of organizations and institutions conducting research in Chile is above the worldwide average. On the other hand, the alternative metrics, including for instance, the altmetrics types presented by the SCOPUS database, reflect that the Chilean research impact is much lower in the context of social networks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Erskine ◽  
Sharief Hendricks

BACKGROUND Medical journals use Twitter to engage and disseminate their research articles and implement a range of strategies to maximize reach and impact. OBJECTIVE This study aims to systematically review the literature to synthesize and describe the different Twitter strategies used by medical journals and their effectiveness on journal impact and readership metrics. METHODS A systematic search of the literature before February 2020 in four electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect) was conducted. Articles were reviewed using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines. RESULTS The search identified 44 original research studies that evaluated Twitter strategies implemented by medical journals and analyzed the relationship between Twitter metrics and alternative and citation-based metrics. The key findings suggest that promoting publications on Twitter improves citation-based and alternative metrics for academic medical journals. Moreover, implementing different Twitter strategies maximizes the amount of attention that publications and journals receive. The four key Twitter strategies implemented by many medical journals are tweeting the title and link of the article, infographics, podcasts, and hosting monthly internet-based journal clubs. Each strategy was successful in promoting the publications. However, different metrics were used to measure success. CONCLUSIONS Four key Twitter strategies are implemented by medical journals: tweeting the title and link of the article, infographics, podcasts, and hosting monthly internet-based journal clubs. In this review, each strategy was successful in promoting publications but used different metrics to measure success. Thus, it is difficult to conclude which strategy is most effective. In addition, the four strategies have different costs and effects on dissemination and readership. We recommend that journals and researchers incorporate a combination of Twitter strategies to maximize research impact and capture audiences with a variety of learning methods. CLINICALTRIAL


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (S1) ◽  
pp. 79-79
Author(s):  
Ashley Dunn ◽  
Michelle B. Bass

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Dissemination of research findings through the published literature is a complex but critical part of the scholarly communication process. Additionally, this time point on the translational spectrum is a key objective of the National Clinical Association for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Tracking the dissemination of research outputs can be difficult to identify and evaluate. The purpose of this case study was 2-fold: (1) identify tools and resources available freely to the public and through university subscriptions used to assess research output; and (2) compare the effectiveness of these tools oat tracking output at different levels of granularity. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The authors, Spectrum staff (D.A.) and School of Medicine librarian (M.B.), attended webinars hosted by other Academic Medical Center libraries conducting work on impact tracking and learned from vendor product managers about available tools and resources during on-site campus visits. Publications from Stanford’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) were used to track the diffusion of research outputs (e.g., number of citations, document types, research areas, relative citation ratio, CTSAs collaboration) via library subscription services (e.g., Web of Science and Scopus) and freely available tools (e.g., iCite and PubMed). RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The authors found certain tools were more inclusive in retrieving grant funded research outputs. For example, in the case of UL1 grant (UL1TR001085, UL1TR000093, UL1RR025744), on a grant-level output, there were discrepancies in the number of publications retrieved: (1) PubMed found 644 outputs; (2) Web of Science found 497 outputs; and (3) Scopus found 190 outputs. After de-duplication, the search across Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and PubMed yielded 899 publications. In total, 389 outputs were unique to PubMed; 165 were unique to WoS; and 90 were unique to Scopus. Future analysis will be conducted to identify the source of unique outputs from each database (e.g., conference proceeding, specific journals). Additional analysis based on other units of research outputs (e.g., author-level outputs and article-level outputs) are expected to yield similar discrepancies. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Citation analysis is a valuable method of assessing research output and, to a larger extent, research impact in a given field. It can help investigators illustrate qualifications for undertaking new projects, highlight collaborations across schools and departments, justify a grant renewal, and/or highlight accomplishments for promotion. However, systematic and comprehensive evaluations are needed in tandem with citation analysis/bibliometric analysis to assess the translation and uptake of research outputs and activities that result in research impact. Furthermore, both investigators and staff need adequate time and training to process research outputs/activities and to effectively organize them in easily understood visualizations.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Iglesias Pastrana ◽  
Francisco Javier Navas González ◽  
Elena Ciani ◽  
Cecilio José Barba Capote ◽  
Juan Vicente Delgado Bermejo

The lack of applied scientific research on camels, despite them being recognized as production animals, compels the reorganization of emerging camel breeding systems with the aim of achieving successful camel welfare management strategies all over the world. Relevant and properly-framed research widely impacts dissemination of scientific contents and drives public willingness to enhance ethically acceptable conditions for domestic animals. Consumer perception of this livestock industry will improve and high-quality products will be obtained. This paper draws on bibliometric indicators as promoting factors for camel-related research advances, tracing historical scientific publications indexed in ScienceDirect directory from 1880–2019. Camel as a species did not affect Journal Citation Reports (JCR) impact (p > 0.05) despite the journal, author number, corresponding author origin, discipline and publication year affecting it (p < 0.001). Countries with traditionally well-established camel farming are also responsible for the papers with the highest academic impact. However, camel research advances may have only locally and partially influenced welfare related laws, so intentional harming acts and basic needs neglect may persist in these species. A sustainable camel industry requires those involved in camel research to influence business stakeholders and animal welfare advocacies by highlighting the benefits of camel wellbeing promotion, co-innovation partnership establishment and urgent enhancement of policy reform.


2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (11) ◽  
pp. 2248-2255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Klenk ◽  
Anna Dabros ◽  
Gordon M. Hickey

This research note presents the results of a bibliometric analysis that was conducted to better understand the impact that Sustainable Forest Management Network (SFMN) funded research had in the forest-related social and Aboriginal research communities. We applied two indicators of research impact: (i) research outputs and (ii) citations. Our results suggest that the SFMN’s research outputs were highest in the fields of economics, sociology, and political science and law. The number of research articles that acknowledged the SFMN was 30% of the total research output of the SFMN-funded Principal Investigators. These articles represented 3% of the social science articles published in the Forestry Chronicle (the journal most frequently used by SFMN-funded Principal Investigators). Research output related to Aboriginal forestry indicated that the SFMN had a significant influence on the development of the field. Our citation analysis indicated that the average number of citations per SFMN-acknowledged publication in the social sciences was approximately the same as the international impact standard in the field. These results suggest that the SFMN-funded research in the social sciences compared very well with the international research standards in forest-related social sciences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 31-32
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kachniewska

Purpose. The presentation of challenges with which scientific journals and - more broadly - scientific communication, will have to face in the substantive, technological and financial sphere in the conditions of constant evolution of the digital world, dynamic development of new information systems in science (e-library, library 2.0) and new phenomena conditioning the behaviour of Internet users. Method. The views presented in the article are the result of a review of literature regarding scientific journals and empirical research, which was conducted from April to August 2018 among 132 authors representing the world of science and economic practices. Findings. The open access (OA) movement has caused significant changes in the behaviour of people of science in publishing and depositing research results. The prospect of taking over all the functions of scientific journals by scientific repositories still seems to be distant due to the lack of alternative methods for assessing the quality of scientific publications. There are doubts about the division into scientific, institutional repositories and the repositories belonging to scientific journals, which results from unclear business models of individual solutions. The phenomenon of self-publishing is stimulated by the dynamic development of research carried out by business units, skilfully analysing the resources of large data sets and successfully popularising research results in social repositories. This is new quality in the area of information exchange, which requires rapid adaptation on scientific grounds. An insufficiently implemented postulate to popularise scientific knowledge and its transfer to business practice remains an equally important challenge. Research and conclusions limitations. The results of the survey based on the respondents’ subjective assessment should be treated with caution and do not allow to draw general conclusions. The research revealed significant discrepancies in respondents' opinions regarding the future of scientific journals and their prospects for functioning in new information systems. The highest doubts concern the quality assessment system of scientific publications and the business model of scientific repositories: the significant number of stakeholders of the scientific communication system, dispersed in various scientific, political and economic systems, further limits the possibility of formulating unambiguous decisions in this respect. Originality. The presented article formulates challenges for scientific journals whose functions are being increasingly taken over by scientific and social repositories. In contrast to the previously published works, this suggests solutions in the field of artificial intelligence, which will enable complete change in the way of publishing and validation of knowledge as well as quality control of scientific research. Type of work. Review article.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-16
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kachniewska

Purpose. The presentation of challenges with which scientific journals and – more broadly – scientific communication, will have to face in the substantive, technological and financial sphere in the conditions of constant evolution of the digital world, dynamic development of new information systems in science (e-library, library 2.0) and new phenomena conditioning the behaviour of Internet users. Method. The views presented in the article are the result of a review of literature regarding scientific journals and empirical research, which was conducted from April to August 2018 among 132 authors representing the world of science and economic practices. Findings. The open access (OA) movement has caused significant changes in the behaviour of people of science in publishing and depositing research results. The prospect of taking over all the functions of scientific journals by scientific repositories still seems to be distant due to the lack of alternative methods for assessing the quality of scientific publications. There are doubts about the division into scientific, institutional repositories and the repositories belonging to scientific journals, which results from unclear business models of individual solutions. The phenomenon of self-publishing is stimulated by the dynamic development of research carried out by business units, skilfully analysing the resources of large data sets and successfully popularising research results in social repositories. This is new quality in the area of information exchange, which requires rapid adaptation on scientific grounds. An insufficiently implemented postulate to popularise scientific knowledge and its transfer to business practice remains an equally important challenge. Research and conclusions limitations. The results of the survey based on the respondents’ subjective assessment should be treated with caution and do not allow to draw general conclusions. The research revealed significant discrepancies in respondents’ opinions regarding the future of scientific journals and their prospects for functioning in new information systems. The highest doubts concern the quality assessment system of scientific publications and the business model of scientific repositories: the significant number of stakeholders of the scientific communication system, dispersed in various scientific, political and economic systems, further limits the possibility of formulating unambiguous decisions in this respect. Originality. The presented article formulates challenges for scientific journals whose functions are being increasingly taken over by scientific and social repositories. In contrast to the previously published works, this suggests solutions in the field of artificial intelligence, which will enable complete change in the way of publishing and validation of knowledge as well as quality control of scientific research. Type of work. Review article.


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