Correlating research impact of library and information science journals using citation counts and altmetrics attention
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-08-2018-0029 |
| Published date | 19 August 2019 |
| Pages | 143-153 |
| Date | 19 August 2019 |
| Author | Ifeanyi Jonas Ezema,Cyprian I. Ugwu |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
Correlating research impact
of library and information
science journals using citation
counts and altmetrics attention
Ifeanyi Jonas Ezema and Cyprian I. Ugwu
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria and University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Abstract
Purpose –Since the development of web 2.0, there has been a paradigm shift in methods of knowledge sharing. This has equally impacted on
techniques of research evaluation. Many scholars have argued that the social utilization of research is hardly reflected in the traditional methods
of research evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to determine the research impact of Library and Information Science (LIS) journals using Web
of Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar (GS) and then examine whether there is a correlation between their citations and altmetric
attentions.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper is an attempt to contribute to this discussion with focus on the field of LIS. This paper adopted
descriptive informatics to analyze LIS journals. The paper extracted citation data from WoS, Scopus and GS, and altmetric attentions from 85 LIS
journals indexed by WoS. Further, 18 journals with high altmetric attention were identified, while 9 of these maintained consistent presence in the
three databases used.
Findings –Findings show that of these databases, citation data from GS was found to have a high correlation with altmetric attention, while the
other two databases maintained moderate correlations with altmetric attention. The paper also found a positive but non-significant correlation
between citation scores and altmetric attention in the nine journals that maintained consistent presence in the three databases.
Practical implications –The findings of this paper will be useful to librarians in selection of relevant journals for their libraries and also will
assist authors in the choice of publication outlets for their papers particularly when considering journals that have visibility and research
impact.
Originality/value –The originality of the paper lies on empirical evidences from the citation and altmetric data extracted from the databases used
for the paper.
Keywords Collection development, Information science, Citation analysis, Altmetrics, Journal evaluation, Research evaluation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
For years now, the research impact of journals has often been
determined using citation counts that have been developed by
ISI Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and other internationally
recognized indexing bodies and h-index and impact factors of
the journals. Even though citationsare globallyaccepted as one
of the metrics for research evaluation (Hirsch, 2005;Ezema
and Onyancha, 2016), studieshave however begun to question
the effectiveness of metrics such as citations, h-index and
impact factor among others given the time lag for accumulation
of citations (Priem and Hermminger, 2010;Adie and Roe,
2013;Thelwall et al.,2013). Consequently, many have
advocated for another form of journal evaluation to determine
its impact in scholarly communication and social impact of
journal publications (Priem and Hermminger, 2010;Konkiel,
2013) so that a form of “balance point”would be achieved
(Galligan and Dyas-Correia, 2013). The recentSan Francisco
Declaration on Research Assessment provides another
criticism on the use of traditional research assessment calling
for the abandonment of journal impact factor for research
assessment. Consequently, the use of altmetrics (short for
alternative metrics) has been used in journal evaluation and
ranking. Altmetricsis defined as “the study and use of scholarly
impact measures based on activity in online tools and
environments”(Priem, 2014, p. 266). But the definition of
Galligan (2012) provides more details about altmetrics, as it is
described as a “new measurement for the impact of scholarly
content, based on how far and wide it travels through the social
Web (like Twitter), social bookmarking (e.g. CiteUlike) and
collaboration such as Mendeley) [...]”Many scholars have
questioned how social impact of research literature can be
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
47/3 (2019) 143–153
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-08-2018-0029]
Received 13 August 2018
Revised 5 September 2018
5 November 2018
21 January 2019
Accepted 23 January 2019
143
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