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Revisiting the relationship between downloads and citations: a perspective from papers with different citation patterns in the case of the Lancet

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Ding

    (Shandong Normal University)

  • Xianlei Dong

    (Shandong Normal University)

  • Yi Bu

    (Peking University)

  • Bin Zhang

    (Nanjing University)

  • Kexin Lin

    (Shandong Normal University)

  • Beibei Hu

    (Shandong Normal University)

Abstract

Downloads and citations of papers are regarded as significant metrics of the academic level of researchers and the influence of journals. Besides, exploring the association between them helps grease the wheels of the academic evaluation system. In this paper, we select 7552 articles published in The Lancet from January 2007 to October 2017 as the research sample and conduct Granger causal inference to investigate the relationship and directionality between downloads and citations. Furthermore, based on the download-citation patterns of articles, this study stratifies articles to explore the directionality between the downloads and citations of articles with different patterns. The results show that 75.86% of the articles have Granger causality between download and citation counts, suggesting that there is a significant causal relationship between downloads and citations. Specifically, the proportion of articles with bilateral Granger causality between download counts and citation counts is the highest, accounting for 35.51%; the proportion of articles whose download counts affect citation counts unilaterally accounts for 14.3%; and the proportion of articles whose citation counts affect download counts unilaterally accounts for 26.05%; 24.14% of the articles have no Granger causality between downloads and citations. Further, most Lancet articles are downloaded more at the early stage after publication, while the citations mainly appear after a period of time, making the slope trend of downloads and citations inconsistent throughout the citation life cycle. Meanwhile, the Granger causal relationship between downloads and citations is related to the slope of their curves. That is, the metric with a lower slope tends to be influenced by the metric with a higher slope.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Ding & Xianlei Dong & Yi Bu & Bin Zhang & Kexin Lin & Beibei Hu, 2021. "Revisiting the relationship between downloads and citations: a perspective from papers with different citation patterns in the case of the Lancet," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7609-7621, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:9:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04099-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04099-3
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