Premium
How do Alternative and Traditional Dissemination Metrics Compare in Medical Education Scholarship?
Author(s) -
Ramnanan Christopher J,
Ambacher Kristin,
Amath Aysah,
O'Brien Cameron,
Wood Timothy J,
Leddy John J
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.568.1
Subject(s) - altmetrics , citation , scholarship , social media , promotion (chess) , computer science , scholarly communication , world wide web , medical education , medicine , political science , publishing , politics , law
Purpose Medical educators need to demonstrate the dissemination of scholarship for academic promotion. Dissemination impact has traditionally been measured using citation‐based metrics. In recent years, other platforms (such as social media tools like Twitter and Facebook) have provided new avenues for authors to promote their work to both scholarly and non‐scholarly audiences. While alternative metrics (altmetrics) can capture non‐traditional dissemination data such as attention generated on social media, the academic value of altmetrics in medical education is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine which altmetrics are indices of access counts and citations in a highly cited, general interest medical education journal. Methods A database study was performed (August 2015) for all Medical Education papers in 2012 (n=236) and 2013 (n=246). Citation, altmetric and access (HTML views + PDF downloads) data were obtained from Scopus, the Altmetric Bookmarklet Tool, and the journal Medical Education , respectively. Correlation coefficients (r values) between variables were determined and statistical significance was calculated. Results Facebook, Google+, Reddit, and LinkedIn were each only used in the dissemination of a small fraction of papers and were not characterized further. Twitter and Mendeley were the only Altmetric‐tracked platforms utilized in the dissemination of greater than 50% of articles. For access counts versus Mendeley downloads, Twitter mentions, and Altmetric Scores, the correlation coefficients were r = 0.79, 0.56, and 0.52 for 2012 papers and 0.65, 0.32, and 0.35 for 2013 papers, respectively. For citation counts versus access counts, Mendeley downloads, Twitter mentions and Altmetric Scores, the correlation coefficients were r = 0.77, 0.81, 0.57, and 0.58 for 2012 papers and 0.62, 0.61, 0.18, and. 0.22 for 2013 papers, respectively. All correlations were statistically significant (P<0.01). Conclusions Mendeley downloads appear to be the strongest altmetric index of both readership and citations for articles in the high‐impact, general interest journal Medical Education . We conclude that access‐based indices (i.e. views and downloads) may be the best Altmetric tool to use in conjunction with citations for the purposes of measuring the impact of medical education scholarship.