Recent trends in the use of social media in parasitology and the application of alternative metrics

In recent times, the use of social media for the dissemination of “news and views” in parasitology has increased in popularity. News, Twitter and Blogs have emerged as commonplace vehicles in the knowledge dissemination and transfer process. Alternative metrics (“altmetrics”), based on social media mentions have been proposed as a measure of societal impact, although firm evidence for this relationship is yet to be found. Nevertheless, increasing amounts of data on “altmetrics” are being analysed to identify the nature of the unknown impact that social media is generating. Here, we examine the recent, and increasing use of social media in the field of parasitology and the relationship of “altmetrics” with more traditional bibliometric indicators, such as article citations and journal metrics. The analyses document the rise and dominance of Twitter as the main form of social media occurring in the discipline of parasitology and note the contribution to this trend of Twitter bots that automatically tweet about publications. We also report on the use of the social referencing platform Mendeley and its correlation to article citations; Mendeley reader numbers are now considered to provide firm evidence on the early impact of research. Finally, we consider the Twitter profile of 31 journals publishing parasitology research articles (by volume of papers published); we show that 13 journals are associated with prolific Twitter activity about parasitology. We hope this study will stimulate not only the continued and responsible use of social media to disseminate knowledge about parasitology for the greater good, but also encourage others to further investigate the impact and benefits that altmetrics may bring to this discipline.

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We highlight and document the rise of social media and its use in parasitology.

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Twitter activity within the parasitology community has increased significantly over the last 10 years.

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Mendeley reader activity is strongly correlated with an article's citations.

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Thirteen journals are associated with prolific Twitter activity about parasitology.

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A Journalʼs social media strategy is important to authors.

Alternative publication metrics in the time of COVID-19

Alternative metrics are unique bibliometrics comprising social, news, and other sources of media outside of traditional academic citations. Some have suggested that these metrics can complement traditional metrics of research impact, including public engagement with research. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study alternative metrics and the dissemination of scientific research given the heightened academic and public interest. This study analyzed Altmetric Attention Scores for the top 25 publications on COVID-19 and the top 25 non-COVID-19 publications in 2020. There were significantly higher levels of social attention scores across multiple metrics for COVID-19 articles than for non-COVID-19 articles for that year. There was a slightly higher goodness of fit between Altmetric Attention Scores and academic citations for COVID-19 publications than for non-COVID-19 publications, although trendline differences were not significant. These results suggest that researchers should be aware that their studies can become highly visible on publicly available social and news media platforms, especially during events of high interest (such as a global pandemic).

Evaluating Journal Impact Factor: a systematic survey of the pros and cons, and overview of alternative measures

Background

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has several intrinsic flaws, which highlight its inability to adequately measure citation distributions or indicate journal quality. Despite these flaws, JIF is still widely used within the academic community, resulting in the propagation of potentially misleading information. A critical review of the usefulness of JIF is needed including an overview of the literature to identify viable alternative metrics. The objectives of this study are: (1) to assess the usefulness of JIF by compiling and comparing its advantages and disadvantages; (2) to record the differential uses of JIF within research environments; and (3) to summarize and compare viable alternative measures to JIF.

Methods

Three separate literature search strategies using MEDLINE and Web of Science were completed to address the three study objectives. Each search was completed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Results were compiled in tabular format and analyzed based on reporting frequency.

Results

For objective (1), 84 studies were included in qualitative analysis. It was found that the recorded advantages of JIF were outweighed by disadvantages (18 disadvantages vs. 9 advantages). For objective (2), 653 records were included in a qualitative analysis. JIF was found to be most commonly used in journal ranking (n = 653, 100%) and calculation of scientific research productivity (n = 367, 56.2%). For objective (3), 65 works were included in qualitative analysis. These articles revealed 45 alternatives, which includes 18 alternatives that improve on highly reported disadvantages of JIF.

Conclusion

JIF has many disadvantages and is applied beyond its original intent, leading to inaccurate information. Several metrics have been identified to improve on certain disadvantages of JIF. Integrated Impact Indicator (I3) shows great promise as an alternative to JIF. However, further scientometric analysis is needed to assess its properties.

A Bibliometric Analysis Using Alternative Metrics for Articles in the Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the articles in the Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine (ARM) using a bibliometric analysis to verify whether there is a correlation between the topics of interest for expert groups and the public media.

METHODS

A total of 1,088 ARM articles from the third issue of 2011 to the third issue of 2019 were analyzed. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of the articles using conventional metrics (CM) and alternative metrics (AM). The CM was investigated by collating the type of publication, number of citations, and the specific field of rehabilitation medicine for each article. The AM was analyzed using the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) provided by Altmetric, the leading AM company. The correlation between the number of citations and the AAS was tested using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient.

RESULTS

The combined ratio of original articles and case reports was over 90% in this study; however, the total distribution was significantly different compared to previous bibliometric studies (p<0.05). There were 233 articles that satisfied both conditions of at least one citation and at least one AAS point. The number of citations and the AAS were found to have a statistically significant positive linear correlation on a scatter plot (r=0.216, p=0.001).

CONCLUSION

There is a significant correlation between AM and CM, which means itis important to increase the dissemination of academic knowledge through the public media and increase the status of the journal by increasing the citation-related index.

Research Impact Core: A Research Impact Initiative at the University of Michigan

Informationists at the Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan, formed a research impact consultation and education initiative in early 2017 to increase engagement with the health sciences community around the informed, responsible use of a range of citation and alternative metrics and associated tools. So far, the Research Impact Core has primarily entailed developing training content and cultivating partnerships related to publication metrics and associated best practices. This article reports on progress from the first two years of the Research Impact Core, including a snapshot of information session registrants, and a broader discussion of collaborative partnerships around research impact in the health sciences and library system.

An examination of the effect of open versus paywalled access publication on the disseminative impact and citation count of publications in intensive care medicine and anesthesia

PURPOSE

We aimed to assess the impact of open access (OA) versus paywalled access (PA) publication on Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS) and whether AAS correlates with future citation count access in the context of intensive care medicine (ICM) and anesthesia.

METHODS

1854 and 2935 publications, in the year 2015, were identified in ICM and anesthesia respectively, using a Pubmed search. The mean AAS was measured for each article.

RESULTS

More ICM articles were OA, compared to of anesthesia articles (38.9% v 35.0% p = 0.02). The mean AAS for OA ICM publications was significantly higher than that of PA ICM publications (17.34 vs 8.45, p < 0.01), however, this was not observed when examined in a fixed follow up time frame. AAS appear to correlate with future citation counts.

CONCLUSIONS

ICM publications that are available as OA in the medium term result in higher AAS when compared to PA publications, this phenomenon was not observed in anesthesia. AAS correlate with future citation counts, however, a larger study is required to confirm this.

The new alchemy: Online networking, data sharing and research activity distribution tools for scientists

There is an abundance of free online tools accessible to scientists and others that can be used for online networking, data sharing and measuring research impact. Despite this, few scientists know how these tools can be used or fail to take advantage of using them as an integrated pipeline to raise awareness of their research outputs. In this article, the authors describe their experiences with these tools and how they can make best use of them to make their scientific research generally more accessible, extending its reach beyond their own direct networks, and communicating their ideas to new audiences. These efforts have the potential to drive science by sparking new collaborations and interdisciplinary research projects that may lead to future publications, funding and commercial opportunities. The intent of this article is to: describe some of these freely accessible networking tools and affiliated products; demonstrate from our own experiences how they can be utilized effectively; and, inspire their adoption by new users for the benefit of science.