Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web Services

Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web Services

May 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 5 | e64841 | Mike Thelwall1*, Stefanie Haustein2, Vincent Larivière3, Cassidy R. Sugimoto4
The study examines the relationship between altmetrics and citations for 76 to 208,739 PubMed articles, using 11 different altmetric sources. Altmetrics, which include Twitter, Facebook wall posts, research highlights, blogs, mainstream media, and forums, are increasingly used as early indicators of article impact. The authors introduce a sign test to overcome biases caused by different citation and usage windows. Statistically significant associations were found between higher metric scores and higher citations for articles with positive altmetric scores in most cases, except for Google+ posts. Evidence was insufficient for LinkedIn, Pinterest, question and answer sites, and Reddit. The study also highlights that the coverage of altmetrics, except for Twitter, is low, suggesting they may only be useful for identifying exceptional or above-average articles. Additionally, the results indicate that time should be considered when using altmetrics to rank articles, as older articles with lower altmetric scores may still be highly cited. The findings extend previous research on the relationship between altmetrics and citations, providing strong evidence that six out of eleven altmetrics associate with citation counts, particularly in medical and biological sciences.The study examines the relationship between altmetrics and citations for 76 to 208,739 PubMed articles, using 11 different altmetric sources. Altmetrics, which include Twitter, Facebook wall posts, research highlights, blogs, mainstream media, and forums, are increasingly used as early indicators of article impact. The authors introduce a sign test to overcome biases caused by different citation and usage windows. Statistically significant associations were found between higher metric scores and higher citations for articles with positive altmetric scores in most cases, except for Google+ posts. Evidence was insufficient for LinkedIn, Pinterest, question and answer sites, and Reddit. The study also highlights that the coverage of altmetrics, except for Twitter, is low, suggesting they may only be useful for identifying exceptional or above-average articles. Additionally, the results indicate that time should be considered when using altmetrics to rank articles, as older articles with lower altmetric scores may still be highly cited. The findings extend previous research on the relationship between altmetrics and citations, providing strong evidence that six out of eleven altmetrics associate with citation counts, particularly in medical and biological sciences.
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