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Relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators across academic social sites: The case of CSIC's members

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  • Ortega, José Luis

Abstract

This study explores the connections between social and usage metrics (altmetrics) and bibliometric indicators at the author level. It studies to what extent these indicators, gained from academic sites, can provide a proxy for research impact. Close to 10,000 author profiles belonging to the Spanish National Research Council were extracted from the principal scholarly social sites: ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Mendeley and academic search engines: Microsoft Academic Search and Google Scholar Citations. Results describe little overlapping between sites because most of the researchers only manage one profile (72%). Correlations point out that there is scant relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators at author level. This is due to the almetric ones are site-dependent, while the bibliometric ones are more stable across web sites. It is concluded that altmetrics could reflect an alternative dimension of the research performance, close, perhaps, to science popularization and networking abilities, but far from citation impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Ortega, José Luis, 2015. "Relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators across academic social sites: The case of CSIC's members," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 39-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:9:y:2015:i:1:p:39-49
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2014.11.004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. José Luis Ortega & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2014. "Microsoft academic search and Google scholar citations: Comparative analysis of author profiles," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(6), pages 1149-1156, June.
    2. José Luis Ortega & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2012. "Science is all in the eye of the beholder: Keyword maps in Google scholar citations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(12), pages 2370-2377, December.
    3. Johan Bollen & Herbert Van de Sompel & Aric Hagberg & Ryan Chute, 2009. "A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(6), pages 1-11, June.
    4. Amalia Mas-Bleda & Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2014. "Do highly cited researchers successfully use the social web?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 337-356, October.
    5. Xuemei Li & Mike Thelwall & Dean Giustini, 2012. "Validating online reference managers for scholarly impact measurement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 461-471, May.
    6. Stefanie Haustein & Isabella Peters & Judit Bar-Ilan & Jason Priem & Hadas Shema & Jens Terliesner, 2014. "Coverage and adoption of altmetrics sources in the bibliometric community," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1145-1163, November.
    7. Ehsan Mohammadi & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Mendeley readership altmetrics for the social sciences and humanities: Research evaluation and knowledge flows," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(8), pages 1627-1638, August.
    8. M. Ryan Haley, 2014. "Ranking top economics and finance journals using Microsoft academic search versus Google scholar: How does the new publish or perish option compare?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(5), pages 1079-1084, May.
    9. Tim Brody & Stevan Harnad & Leslie Carr, 2006. "Earlier Web usage statistics as predictors of later citation impact," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(8), pages 1060-1072, June.
    10. José Luis Ortega & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2012. "Science is all in the eye of the beholder: Keyword maps in Google scholar citations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(12), pages 2370-2377, December.
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