[Paper Review] From Attention to Citation, What and How Does Altmetrics Work?

Xianwen Wang, Chen Liu+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Sep 15, 2014

scientometrics and bibliometrics research20 references20 citations

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between altmetrics (social attention) and traditional citation metrics in 63,805 PLOS articles, finding that social attention strongly correlates with browser HTML views, which in turn correlate most strongly with citations—especially via PDF downloads. The paper proposes a conceptual model showing how social attention drives traffic to article views, ultimately contributing to long-term citation impact.

ABSTRACT

Scholarly and social impacts of scientific publications could be measured by various metrics. In this study, the relationship between various metrics of 63,805 PLOS research articles are studied. Generally, article views correlate well with citation, however, different types of article view have different levels of correlation with citation, when pdf download correlates the citation most significantly. It's necessary for publishers and journals to provide detailed and comprehensive article metrics. Although the low correlation between social attention and citation is confirmed by this study and previous studies, more than ever, we find that social attention is highly correlated with article view, especially the browser html view. Social attention is the important source that bringing network traffic to browser html view and may lead to citation subsequently. High altmetric score has the potential role in promoting the long-term academic impact of articles, when a conceptual model is proposed to interpret the conversion from social attention to article view, and to citation finally.

Motivation & Objective

• To understand the relationship between altmetrics (social attention) and traditional citation metrics in scholarly publications.
• To identify which types of article-level metrics (e.g., views, downloads) most strongly correlate with citations.
• To explore the potential pathway from social attention to increased citations through intermediate metrics like article views.
• To evaluate the role of altmetrics in predicting long-term academic impact of scholarly articles.
• To advocate for publishers to provide detailed, comprehensive article-level metrics for better impact assessment.

Proposed method

• Analyzed data from 63,805 PLOS research articles across multiple metrics: article views (HTML, PDF), social media mentions (altmetrics), and citations.
• Used correlation analysis to compare different types of article views (HTML vs. PDF) with citation counts.
• Examined the relationship between social attention (e.g., mentions on Twitter, Facebook) and article views, particularly browser-based HTML views.
• Proposed a conceptual model illustrating the conversion pathway: social attention → increased article views (especially HTML) → higher citation rates.
• Evaluated the predictive power of altmetric scores for long-term citation impact using empirical data.
• Employed statistical methods to assess the strength and significance of correlations between different metrics.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How do different types of article views (HTML vs. PDF) correlate with citation counts?
• RQ2 To what extent does social attention (altmetrics) correlate with citation counts?
• RQ3 What is the mediating role of article views in the relationship between social attention and citations?
• RQ4 Can altmetric scores predict long-term citation impact of scholarly articles?
• RQ5 What is the pathway through which social attention contributes to increased citations?

Key findings

• PDF downloads show the strongest correlation with citation counts among all article view types.
• Browser HTML views are highly correlated with social attention, indicating that social media drives traffic to online article pages.
• Social attention has a low direct correlation with citations but shows a strong indirect link through increased article views.
• High altmetric scores are associated with increased long-term academic impact, primarily by boosting article visibility and views.
• The conceptual model demonstrates that social attention acts as a catalyst for article views, which in turn enhance citation likelihood.
• Publishers should provide detailed, comprehensive article-level metrics to better reflect scholarly impact beyond citations.