Controlled experiment finds no detectable citation bump from Twitter promotion | bioRxiv

Posted on September 22, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Multiple studies across a variety of scientific disciplines have shown that the number of times that a paper is shared on Twitter (now called X) is correlated with the number of citations that paper receives. However, these studies were not designed to answer whether tweeting about scientific papers causes an increase in citations, or whether they were simply highlighting that some papers have higher relevance, importance or quality and are therefore both tweeted about more and cited more. The authors of this study are leading science communicators on Twitter from several life science disciplines, with substantially higher follower counts than the average scientist, making us uniquely placed to address this question. We conducted a three-year-long controlled experiment, randomly selecting five articles published in the same month and journal, and randomly tweeting one while retaining the others as controls. This process was repeated for 10 articles from each of 11 journals, recording Altmetric scores, number of tweets, and citation counts before and after tweeting. Randomization tests revealed that tweeted articles were downloaded 2.6–3.9 times more often than controls immediately after tweeting, and retained significantly higher Altmetric scores (+81%) and number of tweets (+105%) three years after tweeting. However, while some tweeted papers were cited more than their respective control papers published in the same journal and month, the overall increase in citation counts after three years (+7% for Web of Science and +12% for Google Scholar) was not statistically significant (p > 0.15). Therefore while discussing science on social media has many professional and societal benefits (and has been a lot of fun), increasing the citation rate of a scientist’s papers is likely not among them.

Who tweets scientific publications? A large?scale study of tweeting audiences in all areas of research – Zhang – Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology – Wiley Online Library

Posted on September 6, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of tweets about scientific publications as an indicator of societal impact by measuring the degree to which the publications are tweeted beyond academia. We introduce methods that allow for using a much larger and broader data set than in previous validation studies. It covers all areas of research and includes almost 40 million tweets by 2.5 million unique tweeters mentioning almost 4 million scientific publications. We find that, although half of the tweeters are external to academia, most of the tweets are from within academia, and most of the external tweets are responses to original tweets within academia. Only half of the tweeted publications are tweeted outside of academia. We conclude that, in general, the tweeting of scientific publications is not a valid indicator of the societal impact of research. However, publications that continue being tweeted after a few days represent recent scientific achievements that catch attention in society. These publications occur more often in the health sciences and in the social sciences and humanities.

Do Articles Shared by Academic Medicine Social Media Influencers Drive Future Citation Rates? – Urology

Posted on June 4, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Objectives

To assess the role of influential figures within social media (SoMe) in driving future citations.

Methods

All original articles published in the Journal of Urology (JU) and European Urology (EU) in 2018 were identified. For each article, number of mentions on any SoMe platform, article’s Twitter reach, and total citations were collected. Article characteristics such as type of study, article topic, and open access status were identified. Total academic research output was obtained for first and last authors of included articles.

Influential SoMe figures were defined as users that tweeted about included articles and had over 2000 followers. For these accounts, we collected total followers, total tweets, engagement statistics, verification status, and academic characteristics such as total citations and total prior publications. The impact of social media, article, and academic characteristics on future citations was assessed using panel data regression analysis.

Results

We identified 394 articles with 8,895 total citations and 460 SoMe influencers. On panel data regression modeling, tweets about a specific article were associated with future citations (0.17 citations per tweet about an article, p<0.001). SoMe influencer characteristics were not associated with increased citations (p>0.05).

The following non-SoMe-associated characteristics were predictive of future citations (p<0.001): study type (prospective studies received 12.9 more citations than cross-sectional studies), open access status (4.3 citations more if open access, p<0.001), and previously well-published first and last authors.

Conclusions

While SoMe posts are associated with increased visibility and higher future citation rates, SoMe influencers do not appear to drive these outcomes. Instead, high quality and accessibility were more predictive of future citability.

Mastodon over Mammon – Towards publicly owned scholarly knowledge | Zenodo

Posted on June 4, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Twitter is in turmoil and the scholarly community on the platform is once again starting to migrate. As with the early internet, scholarly organizations are at the forefront of developing and implementing a decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon. Both historically and conceptually, this is not a new situation for the scholarly community. Historically, scholars were forced to leave social media platform FriendFeed after it was bought by Facebook in 2006. Conceptually, the problems associated with public scholarly discourse subjected to the whims of corporate owners are not unlike those of scholarly journals owned by monopolistic corporations: in both cases the perils associated with a public good in private hands are palpable. For both short form (Twitter/Mastodon) and longer form (journals) scholarly discourse, decentralized solutions exist, some of which are already enjoying some institutional support. Here we argue that scholarly organizations, in particular learned societies, are now facing a golden opportunity to rethink their hesitations towards such alternatives and support the migration of the scholarly community from Twitter to Mastodon by hosting Mastodon instances. Demonstrating that the scholarly community is capable of creating a truly public square for scholarly discourse, impervious to private takeover, might renew confidence and inspire the community to focus on analogous solutions for the remaining scholarly record – encompassing text, data and code – to safeguard all publicly owned scholarly knowledge.

Post or Perish? Social Media Strategies for Disseminating Orthopedic Research – Buettmann – Journal of Orthopaedic Research – Wiley Online Library

Posted on May 15, 2023 by OATP primary

Abstract: Social media usage, particularly Twitter, among scientists in academia has increased in recent years. However, Twitter’s use in scholarly post-publication dissemination of orthopaedic research and musculoskeletal advocacy remains low. To enhance usage of Twitter among musculoskeletal researchers, this article reviews data supporting the professional benefits of using the platform to disseminate scholarly works. Next, we provide a linear workflow for Tweet curation, discuss the importance of data-driven decision making behind tweet curation and posting, and propose new guidelines for professional Twitter usage. Since this workflow may not eliminate all the identified barriers and new institutionalized shifts in policies regarding curation and consumption of social media on Twitter, we also briefly introduce and explore using other social media platforms. We hope this information will be persuasive and compelling to those in the orthopedic research field and be broadly applicable to others in related scientific fields who wish to disseminate findings and engage a public audience on social media. In addition, we encourage the Orthopedic Research Society (ORS) and Journal of Orthopedic Research (JOR) communities to take advantage of the many tools curated by the Wiley editorial office and the ORS social media committee to increase dissemination of their scholarly works online. Twitter and social media can assist in accomplishing our mission of creating a world without musculoskeletal limitations via the timely dissemination of orthopedic information. However, this can only be accomplished if the orthopedic research community has a unified and strong online presence actively engaged in orthopaedic research findings and news.

Twitter turbulences and their impact on Altmetric… · Open Access @ Strathclyde

Posted on March 24, 2023 by OATP primary

“So the most likely explanation one is able to fathom is that the ‘Twitter crisis’ may be hitting services largely based on social media impact. It’s not just that the desertion of large swathes of very active communicators in the scholarly comms domain to Mastodon has dried up the references (tweets) that should be there for Altmetric to catch. It’s – presumably – also that such a hit to the information-gathering workflow and to its associated business model has somehow rendered the Altmetric snapshot unreliable. The impact of this paper a week after release has surely been higher than 17 (as of Mar 21st, screenshot posted at the top)….”

The Twitter accounts of scientific journals: a dataset – Insights

Posted on March 15, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Twitter harbours dense networks of academics, but to what extent do scientific journals use that platform? This article introduces a dataset of 3,485 Twitter accounts pertaining to a sample of 13,821 journals listed in Web of Science’s three major indices (SCIE, SSCI and AHCI). The summary statistics indicate that 25.2% of the journals have a dedicated Twitter presence. This number is likely to grow, as, on average, every one and a half days sees yet another journal setting up a new profile. The share of Twitter presence, however, varies strongly by publisher and discipline. The most active discipline is political science, which has almost 75% of its journals on Twitter, while other research categories have zero. The median account issues 116 messages a year and it interacts with distinct other users once in two to three Tweets. Approximately 600 journals refer to themselves as ‘peer-reviewed’, while 263 journals refer to their citation-based impact (like the impact factor) in their profile description. All in all, the data convey immense heterogeneity with respect to the Twitter behaviour of scientific journals. As there are numerous deceptive Twitter profile names established by predatory publishers, it is recommended that journals establish their official accounts lest bogus journals mislead the public about scientific findings. The dataset is available for use for further scientometric analyses.

Shutting down our preprint bots | Feb 21, 2023 | Liberate Science

Posted on February 28, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

“We started running Twitter bots in 2017, when Liberate Science was only a side project. First we launched the PsyArxiv bot. Later, we launched bots for the MetaArxiv (2020) and EdArxiv (2021) preprint servers. Six years in, we are shutting down these Twitter bots. You may have already noticed they are no longer posting any new preprints since February 13th (previously 9th). There are several things that motivate us to stop the preprint bots’ operations. It includes the exodus from Twitter overall; it includes the recent announcement that Twitter API access is no longer free. It includes that the community has taken it upon itself to offer replacement bots on Mastodon.?? We offered preprint bots for free all these years, but that does not mean it was free to run this. We had to run a custom RSS feed service (based on Jeff Spies’ osfpreprints-feed; run on Glitch for $99/year). Automating a bot is free and easy if there is relatively little volume. Especially for PsyArxiv, the amount of preprints grew so rapidly that we had to upgrade our automation and costs went up to ~$600 per year (using Zapier). This is also why the 1,500 free post limit proves too uncertain in the long run….”

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow: five altmetric sources observed over a decade show evolving trends, by research age, attention source maturity and open access status | SpringerLink

Posted on February 28, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

The study of temporal trends in altmetrics is under-developed, and this multi-year observation study addresses some of the deficits in our understanding of altmetric behaviour over time. The attention surrounding research outputs, as partially captured by altmetrics, or alternative metrics, constitutes many varied forms of data. Over the years 2008–2013, a set of 7739 papers were sampled on six occasions. Five altmetric data sources were recorded (Twitter, Mendeley, News, Blogs and Policy) and analysed for temporal trends, with particular attention being paid to their Open Access status and discipline. Twitter attention both starts and ends quickly. Mendeley readers accumulate quickly, and continue to grow over the following years. News and blog attention is quick to start, although news attention persists over a longer timeframe. Citations in policy documents are slow to start, and are observed to be growing over a decade after publication. Over time, growth in Twitter activity is confirmed, alongside an apparent decline in blogging attention. Mendeley usage is observed to grow, but shows signs of recent decline. Policy attention is identified as the slowest form of impact studied by altmetrics, and one that strongly favours the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Open Access Altmetrics Advantage is seen to emerge and evolve over time, with each attention source showing different trends. The existence of late-emergent attention in all attention sources is confirmed.

Our Digital History Is at Risk – Internet Archive Blogs

Posted on February 8, 2023 by OATP primary

“Publishers and platforms continue to play an important role in bringing the work of creators to market, and sometimes assist in the preservation task. But companies close, and change hands, and their commercial interests can cut against preservation and other important public benefits.

Traditionally, libraries and archives filled this gap. But in the digital world, law and technology make their job increasingly difficult. For example, while a library could always simply buy a physical book on the open market in order to preserve it on their shelves, many publishers and platforms try to stop libraries from preserving information digitally. They may even use technical and legal measures to prevent libraries from doing so. While we strongly believe that fair use law enables libraries to perform traditional functions like preservation and lending in the digital environment, many publishers disagree, going so far as to sue libraries to stop them from doing so.

We should not accept this state of affairs. Free societies need access to history, unaltered by changing corporate or political interests. This is the role that libraries have played and need to keep playing. This brings us back to Twitter….”

The Twitter accounts of scientific journals: a dataset

Posted on January 11, 2023 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Whose research benefits more from Twitter? On Twitter-worthiness of communication research and its role in reinforcing disparities of the field | PLOS ONE

Posted on December 18, 2022 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Twitter has become an important promotional tool for scholarly work, but individual academic publications have varied degrees of visibility on the platform. We explain this variation through the concept of Twitter-worthiness: factors making certain academic publications more likely to be visible on Twitter. Using publications from communication studies as our analytical case, we conduct statistical analyses of 32187 articles spanning 82 journals. Findings show that publications from G12 countries, covering social media topics and published open access tend to be mentioned more on Twitter. Similar to prior studies, this study demonstrates that Twitter mentions are associated with peer citations. Nevertheless, Twitter also has the potential to reinforce pre-existing disparities between communication research communities, especially between researchers from developed and less-developed regions. Open access, however, does not reinforce such disparities.

[2212.07811] Do altmetric scores reflect article quality? Evidence from the UK Research Excellence Framework 2021

Posted on December 17, 2022 by peter.suber's bookmarks

Abstract: Altmetrics are web-based quantitative impact or attention indicators for academic articles that have been proposed to supplement citation counts. This article reports the first assessment of the extent to which mature altmetrics from this http URL and Mendeley associate with journal article quality. It exploits expert norm-referenced peer review scores from the UK Research Excellence Framework 2021 for 67,030+ journal articles in all fields 2014-17/18, split into 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs). The results show that altmetrics are better indicators of research quality than previously thought, although not as good as raw and field normalised Scopus citation counts. Surprisingly, field normalising citation counts can reduce their strength as a quality indicator for articles in a single field. For most UoAs, Mendeley reader counts are the best, tweet counts are also a relatively strong indicator in many fields, and Facebook, blogs and news citations are moderately strong indicators in some UoAs, at least in the UK. In general, altmetrics are the strongest indicators of research quality in the health and physical sciences and weakest in the arts and humanities. The Altmetric Attention Score, although hybrid, is almost as good as Mendeley reader counts as a quality indicator and reflects more non-scholarly impacts.

Cureus | Association Between Twitter Mention and Open-Access Status on Article Citation Metrics in the Field of Ophthalmology

Posted on November 13, 2022 by OATP primary

Abstract: Introduction: It is possible that social media use can boost not just articles’ social impact but the number of citations and academic influence as well. If a positive correlation between Twitter usage and citation metrics exists in the ophthalmology literature, it is important to broadcast this information to the ophthalmology community so they can use Twitter to increase academic engagement with their research. There has also been an increase in the number of articles available as open access. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the presence of an open-access citation advantage in the field of ophthalmology. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between Twitter mention and open access status on citation metrics in the ophthalmology literature.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study comparing article citation metrics to Twitter mentions and open access status. We gathered data on ophthalmology research articles from the six highest-ranked ophthalmology journals published as part of a January 2019 issue. Data were collected in April 2022, 38 months after online publication. Data on citations for each article was based on Google Scholar and Scopus websites. The Altmetric Bookmarklet extension was used to determine the amount of social engagement each article received. The open-access status of each article was based on the status listed in its corresponding journal. Two-tailed t-tests were used to compare social media engagement and open access status with the number of Google Scholar and Scopus citations.

Results: A total of 102 original research articles were analyzed. 89 (87.3%) articles received a Twitter mention. Articles tweeted at least once had a significantly higher Google Scholar score (27.2 +/- 4) compared to articles not tweeted (16.4 +/- 1.7; 1.7-fold increase, p<0.05). Likewise, the average Scopus score was significantly higher for tweeted articles (18.6 +/- 2.6) compared to articles not tweeted (11.8 +/- 1.6; 1.6-fold increase, p<0.05). Articles listed as open access had a significantly higher number of Twitter mentions (11.8 +/- 1.8) compared to articles that were not open access (5.6 +/- 0.7; 2.1-fold increase, p<0.05). Open-access articles also had higher citation scores compared to articles that are not open access, but this relationship was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate the relationship between article Twitter mention and citation score in the field of ophthalmology. It demonstrates a significant positive correlation between the article Twitter mention and citation score and provides further evidence that social media engagement can be beneficial to the dissemination of academic information. Further studies on the relationship between social media engagement and article dissemination are warranted in the field of ophthalmology.

Should #SciTwitter Migrate Elsewhere? | Technology Networks

Posted on November 9, 2022 by peter.suber's bookmarks

” “The Twitter model has been enormously helpful for me to share my work widely and rapidly, to get very useful feedback and discussion about my work and for me to discover the work of others that I would not have seen otherwise,” says Professor Brian Nosek, social-cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, co-founder and director of the Center for Open Science.

Beyond communicating research, Twitter has also enabled researchers from across the globe to connect, form new friendships and even discover job opportunities. Previously, this might have only been possible through attending scientific conferences, which are not always accessible or affordable, particularly for early-career researchers. “Among scientists, it [#SciTwitter] has become one of the primary tools to announce new research findings, job openings and upcoming conferences. As a tool of public outreach, the platform has enabled direct dialogue with the public, particularly on crucial topics such as COVID-19 or climate change,” says Dr. David Brückner, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria who became involved in #SciTwitter during his PhD studies.

However, the future of #SciTwitter looks increasingly uncertain right now, as calls for its “migration” to an alternative online platform increase….

In publishing, community-based non-profits such as the preprint servers arXiv, bioRxiv or the journal eLife have been key drivers of positive change. Since #SciTwitter has become such an integral tool of our work, we should consider if there are possibilities for community-based open-source alternatives,” he says….”

About Open Science

(All that comes with it, (but not by itself)

Category Archives: oa.twitter