Altmetrics analysis of selected articles in the field of social sciences
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-07-2021-0124 |
| Published date | 26 January 2022 |
| Date | 26 January 2022 |
| Pages | 452-463 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information in society,Information literacy,Library & information services |
| Author | Mehri Sedighi |
Altmetrics analysis of selected
articles in the field of
social sciences
Mehri Sedighi
Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to measure the impact of the selected papers in the field of social sciences
indexed in Scopususing altmetrics tools.
Design/methodology/approach –The research community consists of the articles of the Iranian
researchers in the field of social sciences indexed in the Scopus database in 2014–2018. Some of the most
important altmetric service providers have been used to assess the presence of the research outputs in the
social media and their impact assessment. Also, the relationship between variables such as scientific
collaboration of researchers,open access journals and the quality of research journals withaltmetric activity
have beeninvestigated through appropriate correlationtests.
Findings –The findings indicated that the most important social media publishing Iranian articles are
Mendeley, Twitterand Facebook. The results of the correlation test showed a statisticallysignificant positive
and weak relationship between the scientific collaboration of researchers and their altmetric activity. Also,
there is a significant and weak statisticalrelation between journal openness and the altmetric scores. In this
study, the findings suggest that the published articles in the journals with higher quality indicators have
higher altmetricscores and are more likely to be present in socialmedia.
Research implications –In this study, the social networkindicators have been introduced as a solution
to examine the effectiveness of research activitieson social media. These indicators can be used to evaluate
the impact and usefulness of the articles and other scientific outputs with the aim of completing and
eliminating the shortcomings of traditional scientometrics indicators. What distinguishes altmetric criteria
from other criteriarelated to the scientometric studies is the speed, ease and transparency of thesescales. This
allows the publicationsto be evaluated regardless of their formal form and in theshortest possible time, and
in additionto the scientificimpact, the social impact of the works is also measured.
Originality/value –The results of these studies show that using altmetric service providers not only
reflects the social impact of publications on authors in different subject areas but also helps libraries,
universities,research organizations and politiciansin planning,budgeting and allocating resources.
Keywords Altmetrics explorer, PlumX, Scopus, Social media, Social sciences, Research impact
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Because of the widespread use of social media in the scientificfields, new indicators called
altmetrics indices alongwith the traditional scientometrics concepts (citation analysis)have
been created to investigate the impact of research activities on social media (Priem
et al.,2010). Altmetricsindicators measure the attention paid to research outputsin the social
Web environment, highlight the media used to publish research findings and are usedas a
symbol of the scientific and social impactof research (Holmberg et al.,2014).
Altmetrics stands for “alternative metrics.”Altmetrics are meant to compliment, not
totally replace, these traditional measures. Altmetrics can be gathered and calculated
immediately, compared with traditional citations that accumulate slowly. Altmetrics
capture data from a variety of sources, not just the traditional academic publishing setting
GKMC
72,4/5
452
Received8 August 2021
Revised24 November 2021
Accepted20 December 2021
GlobalKnowledge, Memory and
Communication
Vol.72 No. 4/5, 2023
pp. 452-463
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9342
DOI 10.1108/GKMC-07-2021-0124
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