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Usage versus citation behaviours in four subject areas

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Gorraiz

    (University of Vienna)

  • Christian Gumpenberger

    (University of Vienna)

  • Christian Schlögl

    (University of Graz)

Abstract

This study puts an emphasis on the disciplinary differences observed for the behaviour of citations and downloads. This was exemplified by studying citations over the last 10 years in four selected fields, namely, arts and humanities, computer science, economics, econometrics, and finance, and oncology. Differences in obsolescence characteristics were studied using synchronic as well as diachronic counts. Furthermore, differences between document types were taken into consideration and correlations between journal impact and journal usage measures were calculated. The number of downloads per document remains almost constant for all four observed areas within the last four years, varying from approximately 180 (oncology) to 300 (economics). The percentage of downloaded documents is higher than 90 % for all areas. The number of citations per document ranges from one (arts and humanities) to three (oncology). The percentages of cited documents range from 40 to 56 %. According to our study, 50–140 downloads correspond to one citation. A differentiation according to document type reveals further download- and citation-specific characteristics for the observed subject areas. This study points to the fact that citations can only measure the impact in the ‘publish or perish’ community; however, this approach is neither applicable to the whole scientific community nor to society in general. Downloads may not be a perfect proxy to estimate the overall usage. Nevertheless, they measure at least the intention to use the downloaded material, which is invaluable information in order to better understand publication and communication processes. Usage metrics should consider the unique nature of downloads and ought to reflect their intrinsic differences from citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger & Christian Schlögl, 2014. "Usage versus citation behaviours in four subject areas," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1077-1095, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:101:y:2014:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1271-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1271-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Bikun Chen, 2018. "Usage pattern comparison of the same scholarly articles between Web of Science (WoS) and Springer," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 519-537, April.
    2. Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger & Thomas Glade, 2016. "On the bibliometric coordinates of four different research fields in Geography," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 873-897, May.
    3. Hu, Beibei & Ding, Yang & Dong, Xianlei & Bu, Yi & Ding, Ying, 2021. "On the relationship between download and citation counts: An introduction of Granger-causality inference," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2).
    4. Bhaskar Mukherjee & Siniša Subotić & Ajay Kumar Chaubey, 2018. "And now for something completely different: the congruence of the Altmetric Attention Score’s structure between different article groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 253-275, January.
    5. Luis Javier Cabeza Ramírez & Sandra M. Sánchez-Cañizares & Fernando J. Fuentes-García, 2019. "Past Themes and Tracking Research Trends in Entrepreneurship: A Co-Word, Cites and Usage Count Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-32, June.
    6. Khan, Abdullah & Rizvi, Syed Aun R. & Ali, Mohsin & Haroon, Omair, 2021. "A survey of Islamic finance research – Influences and influencers," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    7. Barbara McGillivray & Mathias Astell, 2019. "The relationship between usage and citations in an open access mega-journal," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 817-838, November.
    8. Whan Shin, 2022. "Evenly Is Even Better? Digital Competitiveness and the Quality of Medical Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-16, September.
    9. Anthony Breitzman, 2021. "The relationship between web usage and citation statistics for electronics and information technology articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 2085-2105, March.
    10. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-Garcia & Juan Gorraiz, 2017. "Filling the citation gap: measuring the multidimensional impact of the academic book at institutional level with PlumX," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1371-1384, December.
    11. János József Tóth & Gergő Háló & Manuel Goyanes, 2023. "Beyond views, productivity, and citations: measuring geopolitical differences of scientific impact in communication research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5705-5729, October.
    12. Bikun Chen & Dannan Deng & Zhouyan Zhong & Chengzhi Zhang, 2020. "Exploring linguistic characteristics of highly browsed and downloaded academic articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1769-1790, March.
    13. Wolfgang Glänzel & Juan Gorraiz, 2015. "Usage metrics versus altmetrics: confusing terminology?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(3), pages 2161-2164, March.
    14. Gerhard Reichmann & Christian Schlögl, 2022. "On the possibilities of presenting the research performance of an institute over a long period of time: the case of the Institute of Information Science at the University of Graz in Austria," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3193-3223, June.
    15. Gershenson, Seth & Polikoff, Morgan S. & Wang, Rui, 2019. "When Paywall Goes AWOL: The Demand for Open Access Education Research," IZA Discussion Papers 12158, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Pei-Shan Chi & Juan Gorraiz & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2019. "Comparing capture, usage and citation indicators: an altmetric analysis of journal papers in chemistry disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1461-1473, September.
    17. Liwen Vaughan & Juan Tang & Rongbin Yang, 2017. "Investigating disciplinary differences in the relationships between citations and downloads," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1533-1545, June.
    18. Star X. Zhao & Wen Lou & Alice M. Tan & Shuang Yu, 2018. "Do funded papers attract more usage?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 153-168, April.
    19. Muhammad Salman Khan & Muhammad Younas, 2017. "Analyzing readers behavior in downloading articles from IEEE digital library: a study of two selected journals in the field of education," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1523-1537, March.
    20. Wood-Doughty, Alex & Bergstrom, Ted & Steigerwald, Douglas, 2017. "Do download reports reliably measure journal usage? Trusting the fox to count your Hens?," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt1f221007, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    21. Wolfgang Glänzel & Pei-Shan Chi, 2020. "The big challenge of Scientometrics 2.0: exploring the broader impact of scientific research in public health," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1011-1031, November.
    22. Andrés Fernández-Ramos & Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo & Ángela Diez-Diez, 2023. "Use of scientific journals in Spanish universities: analysis of the relationship between citations and downloads in two university library consortia," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2489-2505, April.
    23. Chunli Wei & Jingyi Zhao & Jue Ni & Jiang Li, 2023. "What does open peer review bring to scientific articles? Evidence from PLoS journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2763-2776, May.
    24. Mojisola Erdt & Htet Htet Aung & Ashley Sara Aw & Charlie Rapple & Yin-Leng Theng, 2017. "Analysing researchers’ outreach efforts and the association with publication metrics: A case study of Kudos," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-25, August.
    25. Xianwen Wang & Zhichao Fang & Xiaoling Sun, 2016. "Usage patterns of scholarly articles on Web of Science: a study on Web of Science usage count," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 917-926, November.

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