Debra Beck

Social media might be the way to go for authors hoping to bump up the number of times their articles are cited by other articles, according to a presentation at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology that showed how Altmetric scores influence citation rates in journals.

Altmetrics are nontraditional bibliometrics designed to calculate scholarly impact based on online attention. The Altmetric Attention Score and donut provide a collated record of online attention. The colorful badge, which accompanies an increasing number of journal papers online, offers readers a full record of all original shares and mentions of an individual piece of scholarly content across a range of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, online news media, blogs, Google+, Mendeley, and others.

Dimensions badges, also found on journal sites, count citations from any kind of scientific or mainstream publication. Journal citations remain one of the most recognized proxies for impact in medical research.

Assessing data from over 2,000 articles published in the two official journals of the European League Against Rheumatism – Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD) and RMD Open – during January 2015–November 2019, Paul Studenic, MD, PhD (@Stiddyo), of the Medical University of Vienna, and coauthor Caroline Ospelt, MD, PhD (@CarolineOspelt), of University Hospital Zürich, found that Altmetric Attention Scores are higher for articles published more recently, with Twitter showing by far the highest activity among the score’s subcategories.

“The total number of Twitter mentions increased by 2.8 per year from 2015 to 2019, indicating that more recently published articles were more often picked up on Twitter,” Dr. Studenic said in an interview. He noted that only original tweets that link to an article are given a full count of 1, while retweets or reposts have less impact on the score.

There are exceptions to this finding that newer articles have higher scores than older articles, he noted. A rheumatology article with one of the highest Altmetric Attention Scores (407) is a piece on the effect of habitual knuckle cracking that published in ARD in 1990. “It has one of the most colorful donuts with 42 news outlets, plus blogs, tweets, Facebook pages, Wikipedia mentions, and Mendeley reads,” Dr. Studenic said. But the article’s citation count is only 20.

“I would not say that the Altmetric Score has anything to do with the quality of the study, it’s just a measure of online popularity. So, you might be a brilliant research team that published a perfect study, but it is not of that much interest to editors, or it might not be tweeted by the journal itself because it was not found to be that interesting. In this case you will get your citations through your scientific community,” he said.

“Particularly if you look now at Altmetric Scores for what is being published on COVID-19, the numbers do not represent at all any profoundness of scientific quality, but there is a lot of tweeting of these articles and a lot of attention,” he said.

Overall, the odds for reaching the top 25% of citations increased with the time since publication. The time since publication accounted for 10% of the variability in the probability of reaching the top 25% of citations, whereas the Altmetric Attention Score accounted for about 5% of the variability.

Besides time since publication and Altmetric Attention Score, the type of article also influences citation count, the researchers found. The Altmetric Attention Score was more likely to boost the citation rate for original research and editorials, but it did little for correspondences.

The influence of Altmetric Attention Score on citation count of editorials added 16% to the 12% of variability explained by publication time. “We never found an effect for correspondence articles,” Dr. Studenic added.

Online popularity is something more likely to favor younger researchers, given their greater engagement online, he said. But he stressed that social media savvy is not absolutely necessary. “If you aren’t on social media and you want to build up a network, you can still do it by other means and your manuscript will still be seen, but I would say in that case that the attention kind of runs behind your back, whereas if you’re active on social media, you can steer it more effectively.”

The study had no outside funding. Both authors are social media advisers to ARD and RMD Open, and Dr. Ospelt is an associate editor of RMD Open and an editorial board member of ARD. Dr. Studenic reported receiving research or grant support from AbbVie, and Dr. Ospelt reported receiving consultancy fees from Gilead Sciences.

SOURCE: Studenic P and Ospelt C. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020 Jun;79(suppl 1):208.

Social media might be the way to go for authors hoping to bump up the number of times their articles are cited by other articles, according to a presentation at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology that showed how Altmetric scores influence citation rates in journals.

Altmetrics are nontraditional bibliometrics designed to calculate scholarly impact based on online attention. The Altmetric Attention Score and donut provide a collated record of online attention. The colorful badge, which accompanies an increasing number of journal papers online, offers readers a full record of all original shares and mentions of an individual piece of scholarly content across a range of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, online news media, blogs, Google+, Mendeley, and others.

Dimensions badges, also found on journal sites, count citations from any kind of scientific or mainstream publication. Journal citations remain one of the most recognized proxies for impact in medical research.

Assessing data from over 2,000 articles published in the two official journals of the European League Against Rheumatism – Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD) and RMD Open – during January 2015–November 2019, Paul Studenic, MD, PhD (@Stiddyo), of the Medical University of Vienna, and coauthor Caroline Ospelt, MD, PhD (@CarolineOspelt), of University Hospital Zürich, found that Altmetric Attention Scores are higher for articles published more recently, with Twitter showing by far the highest activity among the score’s subcategories.

“The total number of Twitter mentions increased by 2.8 per year from 2015 to 2019, indicating that more recently published articles were more often picked up on Twitter,” Dr. Studenic said in an interview. He noted that only original tweets that link to an article are given a full count of 1, while retweets or reposts have less impact on the score.

There are exceptions to this finding that newer articles have higher scores than older articles, he noted. A rheumatology article with one of the highest Altmetric Attention Scores (407) is a piece on the effect of habitual knuckle cracking that published in ARD in 1990. “It has one of the most colorful donuts with 42 news outlets, plus blogs, tweets, Facebook pages, Wikipedia mentions, and Mendeley reads,” Dr. Studenic said. But the article’s citation count is only 20.

“I would not say that the Altmetric Score has anything to do with the quality of the study, it’s just a measure of online popularity. So, you might be a brilliant research team that published a perfect study, but it is not of that much interest to editors, or it might not be tweeted by the journal itself because it was not found to be that interesting. In this case you will get your citations through your scientific community,” he said.

“Particularly if you look now at Altmetric Scores for what is being published on COVID-19, the numbers do not represent at all any profoundness of scientific quality, but there is a lot of tweeting of these articles and a lot of attention,” he said.

Overall, the odds for reaching the top 25% of citations increased with the time since publication. The time since publication accounted for 10% of the variability in the probability of reaching the top 25% of citations, whereas the Altmetric Attention Score accounted for about 5% of the variability.

Besides time since publication and Altmetric Attention Score, the type of article also influences citation count, the researchers found. The Altmetric Attention Score was more likely to boost the citation rate for original research and editorials, but it did little for correspondences.

The influence of Altmetric Attention Score on citation count of editorials added 16% to the 12% of variability explained by publication time. “We never found an effect for correspondence articles,” Dr. Studenic added.

Online popularity is something more likely to favor younger researchers, given their greater engagement online, he said. But he stressed that social media savvy is not absolutely necessary. “If you aren’t on social media and you want to build up a network, you can still do it by other means and your manuscript will still be seen, but I would say in that case that the attention kind of runs behind your back, whereas if you’re active on social media, you can steer it more effectively.”

The study had no outside funding. Both authors are social media advisers to ARD and RMD Open, and Dr. Ospelt is an associate editor of RMD Open and an editorial board member of ARD. Dr. Studenic reported receiving research or grant support from AbbVie, and Dr. Ospelt reported receiving consultancy fees from Gilead Sciences.

SOURCE: Studenic P and Ospelt C. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020 Jun;79(suppl 1):208.

Social media might be the way to go for authors hoping to bump up the number of times their articles are cited by other articles, according to a presentation at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology that showed how Altmetric scores influence citation rates in journals.

Altmetrics are nontraditional bibliometrics designed to calculate scholarly impact based on online attention. The Altmetric Attention Score and donut provide a collated record of online attention. The colorful badge, which accompanies an increasing number of journal papers online, offers readers a full record of all original shares and mentions of an individual piece of scholarly content across a range of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, online news media, blogs, Google+, Mendeley, and others.

Dimensions badges, also found on journal sites, count citations from any kind of scientific or mainstream publication. Journal citations remain one of the most recognized proxies for impact in medical research.

Assessing data from over 2,000 articles published in the two official journals of the European League Against Rheumatism – Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD) and RMD Open – during January 2015–November 2019, Paul Studenic, MD, PhD (@Stiddyo), of the Medical University of Vienna, and coauthor Caroline Ospelt, MD, PhD (@CarolineOspelt), of University Hospital Zürich, found that Altmetric Attention Scores are higher for articles published more recently, with Twitter showing by far the highest activity among the score’s subcategories.

“The total number of Twitter mentions increased by 2.8 per year from 2015 to 2019, indicating that more recently published articles were more often picked up on Twitter,” Dr. Studenic said in an interview. He noted that only original tweets that link to an article are given a full count of 1, while retweets or reposts have less impact on the score.

There are exceptions to this finding that newer articles have higher scores than older articles, he noted. A rheumatology article with one of the highest Altmetric Attention Scores (407) is a piece on the effect of habitual knuckle cracking that published in ARD in 1990. “It has one of the most colorful donuts with 42 news outlets, plus blogs, tweets, Facebook pages, Wikipedia mentions, and Mendeley reads,” Dr. Studenic said. But the article’s citation count is only 20.

“I would not say that the Altmetric Score has anything to do with the quality of the study, it’s just a measure of online popularity. So, you might be a brilliant research team that published a perfect study, but it is not of that much interest to editors, or it might not be tweeted by the journal itself because it was not found to be that interesting. In this case you will get your citations through your scientific community,” he said.

“Particularly if you look now at Altmetric Scores for what is being published on COVID-19, the numbers do not represent at all any profoundness of scientific quality, but there is a lot of tweeting of these articles and a lot of attention,” he said.

Overall, the odds for reaching the top 25% of citations increased with the time since publication. The time since publication accounted for 10% of the variability in the probability of reaching the top 25% of citations, whereas the Altmetric Attention Score accounted for about 5% of the variability.

Besides time since publication and Altmetric Attention Score, the type of article also influences citation count, the researchers found. The Altmetric Attention Score was more likely to boost the citation rate for original research and editorials, but it did little for correspondences.

The influence of Altmetric Attention Score on citation count of editorials added 16% to the 12% of variability explained by publication time. “We never found an effect for correspondence articles,” Dr. Studenic added.

Online popularity is something more likely to favor younger researchers, given their greater engagement online, he said. But he stressed that social media savvy is not absolutely necessary. “If you aren’t on social media and you want to build up a network, you can still do it by other means and your manuscript will still be seen, but I would say in that case that the attention kind of runs behind your back, whereas if you’re active on social media, you can steer it more effectively.”

The study had no outside funding. Both authors are social media advisers to ARD and RMD Open, and Dr. Ospelt is an associate editor of RMD Open and an editorial board member of ARD. Dr. Studenic reported receiving research or grant support from AbbVie, and Dr. Ospelt reported receiving consultancy fees from Gilead Sciences.

SOURCE: Studenic P and Ospelt C. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020 Jun;79(suppl 1):208.