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#MedEd: exploring the relationship between altmetrics and traditional measures of dissemination in health professions education
- Source :
- Perspectives on Medical Education
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Introduction Researchers, funders, and institutions are interested in understanding and quantifying research dissemination and impact, particularly related to communicating with the public. Traditionally, citations have been a primary impact measure; however, citations can be slow to accrue and focus on academic use. Recently altmetrics, which track alternate dissemination forms (e. g., social media), have been suggested as a complement to citation-based metrics. This study examines the relationship between altmetrics and traditional measures: journal article citations and access counts. Methods The researchers queried Web of Science and Altmetric Explorer for articles published in HPE journals between 2013–2015. They identified 2,486 articles with altmetrics. Data were analyzed using negative binomial and linear regression models. Results Blogging was associated with the greatest increase in citations (13% increase), whereas Tweets (1.2%) and Mendeley (1%) were associated with smaller increases. Journal impact factor (JIF) was associated with a 21% increase in citations. Publicly accessible articles were associated with a 19% decrease, but the interactive effect between accessible articles and JIF was associated with a 12% increase. When examining access counts, publicly accessible articles had an increase of 170 access counts whereas blogging was associated with a decrease of 87 accesses. Discussion This study suggests that several altmetrics outlets are positively associated with citations, and that public accessibility, holding all other independent variables constant, is positively related to article access. Given the scientific community’s evolving focus on dissemination these findings have implications for stakeholders, providing insight into the factors that may improve citations and access of articles.
- Subjects :
- 020205 medical informatics
Web of science
Internet privacy
02 engineering and technology
Scholarly communication
Education
Access to Information
Social media
0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
Humans
Research dissemination
Altmetrics
Impact factor
business.industry
Information Dissemination
Research
05 social sciences
Health professions
3. Good health
Cross-Sectional Studies
Bibliometrics
Health Occupations
Original Article
0509 other social sciences
050904 information & library sciences
Psychology
business
Citation
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 22122761
- Volume :
- 7
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Perspectives on medical education
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....90629b619679b385fd5f539398ca09b8