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Interpreting “altmetrics”: viewing acts on social media through the lens of citation and social theories

Statut

“More than 30 years after Cronin’s seminal paper on “the need for a theory of citing” (Cronin, 1981), the metrics community is once again in need of a new theory, this time one for so-called “altmetrics”. Altmetrics, short for alternative (to citation) metrics — and as such a misnomer — refers to a new group of metrics based (largely) on social media events relating to scholarly communication. As current definitions of altmetrics are shaped and limited by active platforms, technical possibilities, and business models of aggregators such as Altmetric.com, ImpactStory, PLOS, and Plum Analytics, and as such constantly changing, this work refrains from defining an umbrella term for these very heterogeneous new metrics. Instead a framework is presented that describes acts leading to (online) events on which the metrics are based. These activities occur in the context of social media, such as discussing on Twitter or saving to Mendeley, as well as downloading and citing. The framework groups various types of acts into three categories — accessing, appraising, and applying — and provides examples of actions that lead to visibility and traceability online. To improve the understanding of the acts, which result in online events from which metrics are collected, select citation and social theories are used to interpret the phenomena being measured. Citation theories are used because the new metrics based on these events are supposed to replace or complement citations as indicators of impact. Social theories, on the other hand, are discussed because there is an inherent social aspect to the measurements.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.05701

Is Europe Falling Behind in Data Mining? Copyright’s Impact on Data Mining in Academic Research

Statut

“This empirical paper discusses how copyright affects data mining (DM) by academic researchers. Based on bibliometric data, we show that where DM for academic research requires the express consent of rights holders: (1) DM makes up a significantly lower share of total research output; and (2) stronger rule-of-law is associated with less DM research. To our knowledge, this is the first time that an empirical study bears out a significant negative association between copyright protection and innovation.”

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2608513

Revues scientifiques et droit d’auteur : la rupture de l’open access

Statut

“L’apparition du numérique a constitué pour l’édition scientifique une étape essentielle, comme pour de nombreux autres secteurs des industries dites culturelles. Ici, ce sont les auteurs eux-mêmes, c’est-à-dire les chercheurs dont les articles sont publiés dans les revues scientifiques, qui ont profité de la révolution numérique pour bouleverser les modes de transmission des oeuvres. Il faut dire que ces chercheurs sont doublement concernés par la diffusion des oeuvres scientifiques. Ils en sont les auteurs mais aussi les destinataires principaux : la recherche se nourrit de la recherche, et le chercheur est à la fois le rédacteur d’articles exposant le résultat de ses travaux et le lecteur des publications de ses collègues, qui alimentent ses propres réflexions. C’est ainsi qu’ils ont développé l’idée de l’open access, consistant notamment à assurer un accès gratuit, en ligne, aux articles des revues scientifiques. Il s’agit ici de voir comment l’apparition de ce mouvement en faveur de l’open access a constitué une rupture dans l’évolution de l’édition scientifique et le rôle tenu par le droit d’auteur dans ce contexte.”

URL : http://hal.univ-nantes.fr/halshs-01160567

Characterizing Social Media Metrics of Scholarly Papers: The Effect of Document Properties and Collaboration Patterns

Statut

“A number of new metrics based on social media platforms—grouped under the term “altmetrics”—have recently been introduced as potential indicators of research impact. Despite their current popularity, there is a lack of information regarding the determinants of these metrics. Using publication and citation data from 1.3 million papers published in 2012 and covered in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science as well as social media counts from Altmetric.com, this paper analyses the main patterns of five social media metrics as a function of document characteristics (i.e., discipline, document type, title length, number of pages and references) and collaborative practices and compares them to patterns known for citations. Results show that the presence of papers on social media is low, with 21.5% of papers receiving at least one tweet, 4.7% being shared on Facebook, 1.9% mentioned on blogs, 0.8% found on Google+ and 0.7% discussed in mainstream media. By contrast, 66.8% of papers have received at least one citation. Our findings show that both citations and social media metrics increase with the extent of collaboration and the length of the references list. On the other hand, while editorials and news items are seldom cited, it is these types of document that are the most popular on Twitter. Similarly, while longer papers typically attract more citations, an opposite trend is seen on social media platforms. Finally, contrary to what is observed for citations, it is papers in the Social Sciences and humanities that are the most often found on social media platforms. On the whole, these findings suggest that factors driving social media and citations are different. Therefore, social media metrics cannot actually be seen as alternatives to citations; at most, they may function as complements to other type of indicators.”

URL : Characterizing Social Media Metrics of Scholarly Papers

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0120495

The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research

Statut

“Low reproducibility rates within life science research undermine cumulative knowledge production and contribute to both delays and costs of therapeutic drug development. An analysis of past studies indicates that the cumulative (total) prevalence of irreproducible preclinical research exceeds 50%, resulting in approximately US$28,000,000,000 (US$28B)/year spent on preclinical research that is not reproducible—in the United States alone. We outline a framework for solutions and a plan for long-term improvements in reproducibility rates that will help to accelerate the discovery of life-saving therapies and cures.”

URL : The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165

The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era

Statut

“The consolidation of the scientific publishing industry has been the topic of much debate within and outside the scientific community, especially in relation to major publishers’ high profit margins. However, the share of scientific output published in the journals of these major publishers, as well as its evolution over time and across various disciplines, has not yet been analyzed. This paper provides such analysis, based on 45 million documents indexed in the Web of Science over the period 1973-2013. It shows that in both natural and medical sciences (NMS) and social sciences and humanities (SSH), Reed-Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and Taylor & Francis increased their share of the published output, especially since the advent of the digital era (mid-1990s). Combined, the top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published in 2013. Disciplines of the social sciences have the highest level of concentration (70% of papers from the top five publishers), while the humanities have remained relatively independent (20% from top five publishers). NMS disciplines are in between, mainly because of the strength of their scientific societies, such as the ACS in chemistry or APS in physics. The paper also examines the migration of journals between small and big publishing houses and explores the effect of publisher change on citation impact. It concludes with a discussion on the economics of scholarly publishing.”

URL : The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era

DOI :10.1371/journal.pone.0127502

Open Access Target Validation Is a More Efficient Way to Accelerate Drug Discovery

Statut

“There is a scarcity of novel treatments to address many unmet medical needs. Industry and academia are finally coming to terms with the fact that the prevalent models and incentives for innovation in early stage drug discovery are failing to promote progress quickly enough. Here we will examine how an open model of precompetitive public–private research partnership is enabling efficient derisking and acceleration in the early stages of drug discovery, whilst also widening the range of communities participating in the process, such as patient and disease foundations.”

URL : Open Access Target Validation Is a More Efficient Way to Accelerate Drug Discover

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002164