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Do funded papers attract more usage?

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Abstract

Research funding has been seen as one of the most important resource in the reward system of science. And usage of publications denotes an interesting perspective of user behavior in scientific communication. This study aims to address the relationship between funding and Usage Count, which is a new metrics item established on the platform of Web of Science. Full records of 300,010 articles published in 2013 were downloaded in October 2015, and divided into six disciplines, including information science library science, education educational research, economics, computer science, materials science, and chemistry. Seven indicators were proposed to measure the impact, including Funding rate, Citation per paper, Usage rate, Usage per paper, Citation difference, Usage difference, and Conversion rate. It concluded funding has impact on usage and citation, and funded papers attract more usage, but varying in different disciplines. Usage Count can be used in the extension of citation metrics but with limits. This study originally engages with usage metrics and detected that there is positive correlation between usage and funding.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71503083), Social Science Foundation of Shanghai (2015BTQ002), “Chenguang Program” supported by Shanghai Education Development Foundation and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. 17CG19) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2017M620142).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management, Faculty of Economics and Management, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Star X. Zhao, Wen Lou & Shuang Yu

  2. Institute for Academic Evaluation and Development, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Star X. Zhao & Wen Lou

  3. Shanghai Jiaotong University Library, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 800 Dongchuan Rd, Minhang, Shanghai, China

    Alice M. Tan

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  1. Star X. Zhao
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  2. Wen Lou
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  4. Shuang Yu
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Correspondence to Wen Lou.

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Zhao, S.X., Lou, W., Tan, A.M. et al. Do funded papers attract more usage?. Scientometrics 115, 153–168 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2662-5

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