- The paper demonstrates that Mendeley is the predominant altmetrics source, covering 62.6% of the examined publications.
- It finds a moderate Spearman correlation (r=0.49) between Mendeley readership and citation metrics, indicating complementary insights.
- The study highlights higher altmetric visibility in Multidisciplinary, Medical & Life Sciences, and underrepresented fields like Social Sciences and Humanities.
Cross-Disciplinary Presence and Potential of Altmetrics
The paper "How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of 'alternative metrics' in scientific publications" by Zohreh Zahedi, Rodrigo Costas, and Paul Wouters executes an extensive analysis of the role and potential of altmetrics as an alternative to traditional bibliometric indicators. Focusing on the altmetric data retrieved from Impact Story for a considerable sample of 20,000 publications across diverse scientific disciplines, the paper sheds light on the presence, distribution, and correlation of altmetrics with conventional citation metrics.
The analysis demonstrates that Mendeley is the predominant source of altmetrics, providing readership metrics for 62.6% of the examined publications. This suggests Mendeley's significant coverage across multiple fields in comparison to other data sources such as Twitter, Wikipedia, and Delicious, which demonstrated marginal presence. This substantial representation indicates potential utility in research performance analysis; however, the low presence of altmetrics across other platforms underscores the current limitations of these indicators as comprehensive assessment tools.
The moderate Spearman correlation coefficient (r=0.49) found between Mendeley readership counts and citation indicators suggests a coherent relationship, though differentiating these metrics in terms of their implications remains critical. While citations denote scholarly impact, altmetrics are suggested to provide insights into broader societal engagement and dissemination of scientific outputs, a dimension inadequately captured by traditional metrics.
A closer inspection of document types reveals that articles and review papers attract the highest altmetric counts, particularly on Mendeley, reaffirming expected usage patterns among research output types. Disciplinary analysis distinguishes Multidisciplinary and Medical & Life Sciences as fields with higher altmetric visibility. However, there is a noteworthy observation that in the domains of Social and Behavioral Sciences, as well as Arts & Humanities, altmetrics (particularly Mendeley readerships) surpass traditional citation density. This suggests altmetrics' promise in addressing the coverage gaps left by conventional metrics, especially for fields traditionally underrepresented in citation databases.
In a temporal context, the paper reveals a trend wherein more recent publications exhibit higher altmetric counts, especially in dynamic platforms like Twitter. In contrast, the paper observes a slight decrement in Mendeley metrics for publications from the most recent years, which could be attributable to the time needed for readership accumulation.
Despite the promising potential, a comprehensive understanding of altmetrics' relevance demands further inquiry into the qualitative dimensions of these metrics. Determining the specific types of impact they represent is crucial before they can be fully utilized in research evaluation frameworks. Detailed studies elucidating the motivations and contexts of engagements leading to altmetric counts are necessary to unravel their true significance.
In summary, while the paper significantly contributes to the literature by highlighting both the possibilities and constraints associated with altmetrics, it also opens several avenues for further research. Future explorations should focus on the refinement of altmetric tools, ensuring data validity, transparency, and reliability to integrate these metrics robustly into the research assessment paradigm. Altmetrics' increasing adoption and coverage signify an evolving landscape in research evaluation practices, where these novel metrics could complement traditional measures and yield holistic assessments of research impact.