Analyzing readerships of International Iranian publications in Mendeley: an altmetrics study

In this study, the presence and distribution of both Mendeley readerships (usage) and Web of Science (WoS) citations for the publications published in the 43 Iranian international journals indexed in JCR have been investigated. The aim was to determine the impact, visibility and use of the publications published by the Iranian international journals in Mendeley compared to their citation impact; furthermore, to explore if there is any relation between these two impact indicators (Mendeley readership counts and WoS citation counts) for these publications (i.e. the extent to which Mendeley readership counts correlate with citation indicators). The DoIs of the 1,884 publications[1] used to extract the readerships data from Mendeley REST API in February 2014 and citations data until end of 2013 calculated using CWTS in-house WoS database. SPSS (version 21) used to analyze the relationship between the readerships and citations for those publications. The Mendeley usage distribution both at the publication level (across publications years, fields and document types) and at the user level (across users’ disciplines, academic status and countries) have been investigated. These information will help to understand the visibility and usage vs citation pattern and impact of Iranian scientific outputs. The findings indicate that 52% of those publications are saved in Mendeley; also, these publications on average have more readership per paper (RPP) (2.63) than citation per paper (CPP) (.49); also, the publications with at least one Mendeley readers exhibits more CPP (.49) compared to those that are not saved in Mendeley (i.e. with zero readership) (.39). This may indicate the benefit of saving document in Mendeley for these publications. In terms of relations with citation, a weak spearman correlation (r = 0.179) has been found between Mendeley readership counts and citation indicators. This may suggest that users use these scientific outputs for reasons other than using and citing them in their scholarly practices (such as learning, teaching, self-awareness, etc.) which worth to explore in further research. These findings also indicate that at the publication level, articles and reviews; publications from year 2013 and Medical and Engineering are among the most common document types, publication year and disciplines saved in Mendeley. Regarding the user level, Iranian international publications are mostly used by users from countries such as US, UK and Germany; PhDs as an academic status and disciplines such as Engineering, biological and medical sciences. Mendeley readership data offers useful statistics and metadata about the impact and usage pattern of scientific outputs by different user types that are not available by citation databases; this information helps to formulate other types of impact than only scientific one and could be used as an informative and complimentary tool beside citation databases in interpreting impact of scholarly outputs. still many research needed to be done to dig more into these new metrics; their meaning and validity and reliability before its application in research evaluation. Keywords: altmetrics, Mendeley, JCR, WoS, Iranian international Publications; research evaluation [1]. Out of 16,478 publications, 1,884 of them have DOIs out of which 1,389 were saved in Mendeley .

本研究针对期刊引证报告（Journal Citation Reports，JCR）收录的43种伊朗国际期刊刊载的文献，调查了其Mendeley读者量（使用数据）与Web of Science（WoS）被引量的存在情况及分布特征。本研究旨在对比伊朗国际期刊刊载文献在Mendeley中的影响力、可见性与使用情况，及其被引量影响力；同时探究此类文献的两类影响力指标（Mendeley读者量与WoS被引量量）之间是否存在关联，即Mendeley读者量与被引量指标的相关程度。本研究共获取1884篇文献的数字对象标识符（Digital Object Identifier，DOI）[1]，于2014年2月通过Mendeley REST API提取其读者量数据，并利用CWTS自建WoS数据库计算截至2013年末的被引量数据。采用SPSS（21版本）分析此类文献的读者量与被引量间的关联关系。本研究同时从文献层面（按刊载年份、学科领域、文献类型）与用户层面（按用户所属学科、学术身份、所属国家）调查了Mendeley使用数据的分布特征。上述信息有助于理解伊朗科研产出的可见性、使用模式与被引量影响力之间的关系。研究结果显示，此类文献中有52%已被保存至Mendeley；且单篇文献平均读者量（Readership per Paper，RPP）为2.63，高于单篇平均被引量（Citation per Paper，CPP）的0.49；此外，至少拥有1名Mendeley读者的文献，其单篇平均被引量（0.49）高于未被保存至Mendeley（即读者量为0）的文献（0.39），这表明将文献保存至Mendeley可能对此类文献存在益处。在与被引量的关联方面，研究发现Mendeley读者量与被引量指标间存在较弱的斯皮尔曼相关系数（r=0.179）。这提示用户使用此类科研产出的动机可能并非仅为在学术实践中使用或引用它们（例如用于学习、教学、自我认知等），这一方向值得后续研究进一步探索。研究结果还显示，在文献层面，期刊论文与综述类文献、2013年刊载的文献以及医学与工程学领域的文献均为Mendeley中保存量最多的文献类型、刊载年份与学科领域。在用户层面，伊朗国际期刊文献的主要使用者来自美国、英国、德国等国家，学术身份以博士群体为主，所属学科则涵盖工程学、生物学与医学科学。Mendeley读者量数据能够提供关于不同用户群体对科研产出的影响力与使用模式的有效统计与元数据，而此类信息是被引量数据库无法获取的；该数据可用于构建除学术影响力之外的其他类型影响力评价体系，可作为被引量数据库的补充工具，辅助阐释学术产出的影响力。不过在将此类新指标应用于科研评价之前，仍需开展大量研究以深入探究其内涵、有效性与可靠性。关键词：替代计量学（altmetrics）、Mendeley、JCR、WoS、伊朗国际期刊文献；科研评价[1]。注：在16478篇文献中，共有1884篇拥有DOI，其中1389篇已被保存至Mendeley。