Do “altmetrics” correlate with citations? Extensive comparison of altmetric indicators with citations from a multidisciplinary perspective

Dados Bibliográficos

ID23328356
AutoresRodrigo Costas (0000-0002-1967-8378, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences Leiden University PO Box 905 2300 AX Leiden The Netherlands), Rodrigo Costas Comesana (0000-0002-7465-6462, Leiden University, autor correspondente), Zohreh Zahedi (0000-0001-5801-1886, Leiden University, autor correspondente), Paul Wouters (0000-0002-4324-5732, Leiden University, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume66
Fascículo10
Páginas2003-2019
Data de publicação2015-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2330-1635 • E-ISSN: 2330-1643
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/asi.23309
OpenAlexW2164277894
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas91
Referências citadas18

An extensive analysis of the presence of different altmetric indicators provided by Altmetric.com across scientific fields is presented, particularly focusing on their relationship with citations. Our results confirm that the presence and density of social media altmetric counts are still very low and not very frequent among scientific publications, with 15%–24% of the publications presenting some altmetric activity and concentrated on the most recent publications, although their presence is increasing over time. Publications from the social sciences, humanities, and the medical and life sciences show the highest presence of altmetrics, indicating their potential value and interest for these fields. The analysis of the relationships between altmetrics and citations confirms previous claims of positive correlations but is relatively weak, thus supporting the idea that altmetrics do not reflect the same kind of impact as citations. Also, altmetric counts do not always present a better filtering of highly‐cited publications than journal citation scores. Altmetric scores (particularly mentions in blogs) are able to identify highly‐cited publications with higher levels of precision than journal citation scores ( JCS ), but they have a lower level of recall. The value of altmetrics as a complementary tool of citation analysis is highlighted, although more research is suggested to disentangle the potential meaning and value of altmetric indicators for research evaluation.

Altmetrics · Bibliometrics · Citation · Data science · Library science · Multidisciplinary approach · Perspective (graphical) · Social science · Sociology · Academic Publishing and Open Access · Academic Writing and Publishing · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Psychology · scientometrics and bibliometrics research