IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v115y2018i1d10.1007_s11192-018-2674-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cross-metric compatability and inconsistencies of altmetrics

Author

Listed:
  • Christine Meschede

    (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

  • Tobias Siebenlist

    (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

Abstract

Metrics like the number of tweets or Mendeley readers are currently discussed as an alternative to evaluate research. These alternative metrics (altmetrics) still need to be evaluated in order to fully understand their meaning, their benefits and limitations. While several preceding studies concentrate on correlations of altmetrics with classical measures like citations, this study aims at investigating metric-compatibility within altmetrics. For this purpose, 5000 journal articles from six disciplines have been analyzed regarding their metrics with the help of the aggregators PlumX and Altmetric.com. For this set, the highest numbers of events have been recognized regarding Mendeley readers, followed by Twitter and Facebook mentions. Thereby variations considering the aggregators could be observed. Intra-correlations between the metrics across one aggregator have been calculated, as well as inter-correlations for the corresponding metrics across the aggregators. For both aggregators, low to medium intra-correlations could be calculated which shows the diversity of the different metrics. Regarding inter-correlations, PlumX and Altmetric.com are highly consistent concerning Mendeley readers ( $$r=0.97$$ r = 0.97 ) and Wikipedia mentions ( $$r=0.82$$ r = 0.82 ), whereas the consistency concerning Twitter ( $$r=0.49$$ r = 0.49 ), blogs ( $$r=0.46$$ r = 0.46 ) and Reddit ( $$r=0.41$$ r = 0.41 ) is on a moderate level. The sources Facebook ( $$r=0.29$$ r = 0.29 ), Google+ ( $$r=0.28$$ r = 0.28 ) and News ( $$r=0.11$$ r = 0.11 ) show only low correlations.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine Meschede & Tobias Siebenlist, 2018. "Cross-metric compatability and inconsistencies of altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 283-297, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:115:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2674-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2674-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-018-2674-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-018-2674-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim Holmberg & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Disciplinary differences in Twitter scholarly communication," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1027-1042, November.
    2. Pardeep Sud & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Evaluating altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1131-1143, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Zohreh Zahedi & Rodrigo Costas & Paul Wouters, 2014. "How well developed are altmetrics? A cross-disciplinary analysis of the presence of ‘alternative metrics’ in scientific publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1491-1513, November.
    5. Stefanie Haustein & Timothy D. Bowman & Kim Holmberg & Andrew Tsou & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Tweets as impact indicators: Examining the implications of automated “bot” accounts on Twitter," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(1), pages 232-238, January.
    6. Katrin Weller, 2015. "Social Media and Altmetrics: An Overview of Current Alternative Approaches to Measuring Scholarly Impact," Springer Books, in: Isabell M. Welpe & Jutta Wollersheim & Stefanie Ringelhan & Margit Osterloh (ed.), Incentives and Performance, edition 127, pages 261-276, Springer.
    7. Haustein, Stefanie & Siebenlist, Tobias, 2011. "Applying social bookmarking data to evaluate journal usage," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 446-457.
    8. Diana Hicks & Paul Wouters & Ludo Waltman & Sarah de Rijcke & Ismael Rafols, 2015. "Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics," Nature, Nature, vol. 520(7548), pages 429-431, April.
    9. Mojisola Erdt & Aarthy Nagarajan & Sei-Ching Joanna Sin & Yin-Leng Theng, 2016. "Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1117-1166, November.
    10. Lutz Bornmann, 2015. "Alternative metrics in scientometrics: a meta-analysis of research into three altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1123-1144, June.
    11. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saeed-Ul Hassan & Sehrish Iqbal & Naif R. Aljohani & Salem Alelyani & Alesia Zuccala, 2020. "Introducing the ‘alt-index’ for measuring the social visibility of scientific research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1407-1419, June.
    2. Johanna M. Askeridis, 2018. "An h index for Mendeley: comparison of citation-based h indices and a readership-based hmen index for 29 authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 615-624, October.
    3. José Luis Ortega, 2018. "Reliability and accuracy of altmetric providers: a comparison among Altmetric.com, PlumX and Crossref Event Data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2123-2138, September.
    4. Latefa Ali Dardas & Malik Sallam & Amanda Woodward & Nadia Sweis & Narjes Sweis & Faleh A. Sawair, 2023. "Evaluating Research Impact Based on Semantic Scholar Highly Influential Citations, Total Citations, and Altmetric Attention Scores: The Quest for Refined Measures Remains Illusive," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    5. Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas & Wencan Tian & Xianwen Wang & Paul Wouters, 2020. "An extensive analysis of the presence of altmetric data for Web of Science publications across subject fields and research topics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2519-2549, September.
    6. Houqiang Yu & Xueting Cao & Tingting Xiao & Zhenyi Yang, 2020. "How accurate are policy document mentions? A first look at the role of altmetrics database," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1517-1540, November.
    7. Pantea Kamrani & Isabelle Dorsch & Wolfgang G. Stock, 2021. "Do researchers know what the h-index is? And how do they estimate its importance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 5489-5508, July.
    8. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    9. José Luis Ortega, 2020. "Blogs and news sources coverage in altmetrics data providers: a comparative analysis by country, language, and subject," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 555-572, January.
    10. de Carvalho, Gustavo Dambiski Gomes & Sokulski, Carla Cristiane & da Silva, Wesley Vieira & de Carvalho, Hélio Gomes & de Moura, Rafael Vignoli & de Francisco, Antonio Carlos & da Veiga, Claudimar Per, 2020. "Bibliometrics and systematic reviews: A comparison between the Proknow-C and the Methodi Ordinatio," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    11. Ortega, José Luis, 2020. "Proposal of composed altmetric indicators based on prevalence and impact dimensions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    12. Zhichao Fang & Jonathan Dudek & Rodrigo Costas, 2020. "The stability of Twitter metrics: A study on unavailable Twitter mentions of scientific publications," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(12), pages 1455-1469, December.
    13. Raminta Pranckutė, 2021. "Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-59, March.
    14. Mousumi Karmakar & Sumit Kumar Banshal & Vivek Kumar Singh, 2021. "A large-scale comparison of coverage and mentions captured by the two altmetric aggregators: Altmetric.com and PlumX," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4465-4489, May.
    15. Alice Fleerackers & Lise Nehring & Lauren A. Maggio & Asura Enkhbayar & Laura Moorhead & Juan Pablo Alperin, 2022. "Identifying science in the news: An assessment of the precision and recall of Altmetric.com news mention data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6109-6123, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    2. Maryam Moshtagh & Tahereh Jowkar & Maryam Yaghtin & Hajar Sotudeh, 2023. "The moderating effect of altmetrics on the correlations between single and multi-faceted university ranking systems: the case of THE and QS vs. Nature Index and Leiden," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 761-781, January.
    3. Saeed-Ul Hassan & Mubashir Imran & Uzair Gillani & Naif Radi Aljohani & Timothy D. Bowman & Fereshteh Didegah, 2017. "Measuring social media activity of scientific literature: an exhaustive comparison of scopus and novel altmetrics big data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 1037-1057, November.
    4. Isidro F. Aguillo, 2020. "Altmetrics of the Open Access Institutional Repositories: a webometrics approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1181-1192, June.
    5. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "Research Interest: another undisclosed (and redundant) algorithm by ResearchGate," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 351-360, July.
    6. Lutz Bornmann & Robin Haunschild & Vanash M Patel, 2020. "Are papers addressing certain diseases perceived where these diseases are prevalent? The proposal to use Twitter data as social-spatial sensors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    7. 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.
    8. Bornmann, Lutz & Haunschild, Robin & Adams, Jonathan, 2019. "Do altmetrics assess societal impact in a comparable way to case studies? An empirical test of the convergent validity of altmetrics based on data from the UK research excellence framework (REF)," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 325-340.
    9. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2019. "ResearchGate Score, full-text research items, and full-text reads: a follow-up study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1255-1262, May.
    10. Sergio Copiello & Pietro Bonifaci, 2018. "A few remarks on ResearchGate score and academic reputation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 301-306, January.
    11. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    12. Ni Cheng & Ke Dong, 2018. "Knowledge communication on social media: a case study of Biomedical Science on Baidu Baike," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1749-1770, September.
    13. Lutz Bornmann, 2015. "Alternative metrics in scientometrics: a meta-analysis of research into three altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1123-1144, June.
    14. Ying Guo & Xiantao Xiao, 2022. "Author-level altmetrics for the evaluation of Chinese scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 973-990, February.
    15. Yu Liu & Dan Lin & Xiujuan Xu & Shimin Shan & Quan Z. Sheng, 2018. "Multi-views on Nature Index of Chinese academic institutions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 823-837, March.
    16. Liwei Zhang & Jue Wang, 2021. "What affects publications’ popularity on Twitter?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9185-9198, November.
    17. Mike Thelwall, 2021. "Measuring Societal Impacts Of Research With Altmetrics? Common Problems And Mistakes," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1302-1314, December.
    18. Cristina López-Duarte & Marta M. Vidal-Suárez & Belén González-Díaz, 2019. "Cross-national distance and international business: an analysis of the most influential recent models," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 173-208, October.
    19. Ortega, José Luis, 2020. "Proposal of composed altmetric indicators based on prevalence and impact dimensions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    20. Saeed-Ul Hassan & Naif R. Aljohani & Mudassir Shabbir & Umair Ali & Sehrish Iqbal & Raheem Sarwar & Eugenio Martínez-Cámara & Sebastián Ventura & Francisco Herrera, 2020. "Tweet Coupling: a social media methodology for clustering scientific publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 973-991, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:115:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2674-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.