Do Mendeley readership counts help to filter highly cited WoS publications better than average citation impact of journals (JCS)?

Abstract: In this study, the academic status of users of scientific publications in Mendeley is explored in order to analyse the usage pattern of Mendeley users in terms of subject fields, citation and readership impact. The main focus of this study is on studying the filtering capacity of Mendeley readership counts compared to journal citation scores in detecting highly cited WoS publications. Main finding suggests a faster reception of Mendeley readerships as compared to citations across 5 major field of science. The higher correlations of scientific users with citations indicate the similarity between reading and citation behaviour among these users. It is confirmed that Mendeley readership counts filter highly cited publications (PPtop 10%) better than journal citation scores in all subject fields and by most of user types. This result reinforces the potential role that Mendeley readerships could play for informing scientific and alternative impacts.