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Context of altmetrics data matters: an investigation of count type and user category

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Abstract

Context of altmetrics data is essential for further understanding value of altmetrics beyond raw counts. Mainly two facets of context are explored, the count type which reflects user’s multiple altmetrics behaviors and user category which reflects part of user’s background. Based on 5.18 records provided by Altmetric.com, both descriptive statistics and t test result show significant difference between number of posts (NP) and number of unique users (NUU). For several altmetrics indicators, NP has moderate to low correlation with NUU. User category is found to have huge impact on altmetrics count. Analysis of twitter user category shows the general tweet distribution is strongly influenced by the public user. Tweets from research user are more correlated with citations than any other user categories. Moreover, disciplinary difference exists for different user categories.

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Acknowledgements

Thank Altmetric.com for providing the dataset and anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. The research is supported by China Scholarship Council (NO: 201506270024) and National Social Science Foundation of China (CTQ023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Houqiang Yu

  2. Research Center for China Science Evaluation, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Houqiang Yu

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  1. Houqiang Yu
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Correspondence to Houqiang Yu.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Abbreviation of scopus disciplines

No.

Abbv.

Full name

No.

Abbv.

Full name

1

AGRI

Agricultural and Biological Sciences

15

HEAL

Health Professions

2

ARTS

Arts and Humanities

16

IMMU

Immunology and Microbiology

3

BIOC

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

17

MATE

Materials Science

4

BUSI

Business, Management and Accounting

18

MATH

Mathematics

5

CENG

Chemical Engineering

19

MEDI

Medicine

6

CHEM

Chemistry

20

MULT

Multidisciplinary

7

COMP

Computer Science

21

NEUR

Neuroscience

8

DECI

Decision Sciences

22

NURS

Nursing

9

DENT

Dentistry

23

PHAR

Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

10

EART 

Earth and Planetary Sciences

24

PHYS

Physics and Astronomy

11

ECON

Economics, Econometrics and Finance

25

PSYC

Psychology

12

ENER

Energy

26

SOCI

Social Sciences

13

ENGI

Engineering

27

VETE

Veterinary

14

ENVI

Environmental Science

   

Appendix 2: Number, percentage and matching rate of Scopus publication

Discipline

January, 2012

January, 2013

January, 2014

Avg. (%)

\(\varvec{N}_{\varvec{p}}\)

Ptg. (%)

MR (%)

\(\varvec{N}_{\varvec{p}}\)

Ptg. (%)

MR (%)

\(\varvec{N}_{\varvec{p}}\)

Ptg. (%)

MR (%)

AGRI

11,760

5.6

11.73

11,763

5.6

20.97

13,753

5.9

18.67

18.96

ARTS

3957

1.9

8.62

4811

2.3

10.00

6280

2.7

8.14

8.56

BIOC

19,013

9.0

10.82

19,432

9.3

16.71

20,954

9.1

15.52

15.52

BUSI

2815

1.3

9.48

2748

1.3

12.66

3408

1.5

4.49

7.00

CENG

6506

3.1

3.55

6984

3.3

5.47

6604

2.9

4.54

4.64

CHEM

15,104

7.1

4.32

14,845

7.1

7.09

13,533

5.9

4.97

5.54

COMP

6651

3.1

4.07

5645

2.7

6.71

7121

3.1

4.48

4.99

DECI

1207

0.6

5.47

1260

0.6

5.71

1217

0.5

5.18

5.22

DENT

856

0.4

5.37

935

0.4

5.67

872

0.4

8.72

6.82

EART

5593

2.6

5.33

5221

2.5

8.06

6643

2.9

5.95

6.29

ECON

2100

1.0

7.62

2096

1.0

11.93

2765

1.2

6.04

7.57

ENER

3387

1.6

3.07

3433

1.6

4.31

3171

1.4

3.22

3.50

ENGI

17,576

8.3

1.73

15,970

7.6

2.52

17,486

7.6

2.17

2.19

ENVI

6910

3.3

4.98

6921

3.3

8.96

8468

3.7

6.37

6.96

HEAL

1373

0.6

6.99

1502

0.7

9.92

1637

0.7

5.68

6.85

IMMU

4823

2.3

6.97

4115

2.0

9.53

4470

1.9

10.56

9.82

MATE

14,182

6.7

3.06

13,066

6.3

3.77

12,893

5.6

2.48

2.82

MATH

7011

3.3

3.25

5666

2.7

6.41

7165

3.1

4.21

4.80

MEDI

36,706

17.3

21.05

39,358

18.8

24.57

45,412

19.6

11.20

11.52

MULT

1221

0.6

8.97

1176

0.6

11.82

1237

0.5

27.24

26.30

NEUR

4035

1.9

9.62

3867

1.8

11.21

4228

1.8

9.96

10.21

NURS

2619

1.2

3.74

2677

1.3

6.81

2588

1.1

7.42

8.41

PHAR

5167

2.4

4.42

5285

2.5

6.07

5902

2.6

3.90

4.74

PHYS

16,769

7.9

14.99

15,573

7.5

17.18

15,234

6.6

5.03

5.19

PSYC

3609

1.7

11.68

3365

1.6

13.50

3966

1.7

9.35

11.65

SOCI

9565

4.5

7.36

10,157

4.9

15.13

13,206

5.7

9.39

10.49

VETE

1237

0.6

6.95

1157

0.6

10.22

1113

0.5

6.65

9.41

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Yu, H. Context of altmetrics data matters: an investigation of count type and user category. Scientometrics 111, 267–283 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2251-z

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