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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Journal of Academic Ophthalmology 2021; 13(01): e89-e95
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1728658
Research Article

Examining the Relationship between Altmetric Score and Traditional Bibliometrics in the Ophthalmology Literature for 2013 and 2016 Cohorts

Zachary C. Wiley 
1   School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
,
Carter J. Boyd
2   School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
,
Shivani Ananthasekar
2   School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
,
Nita Bhat
3   Department of Ophthalmology, Blanton Eye Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas
,
Shruthi Harish Bindiganavile
3   Department of Ophthalmology, Blanton Eye Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas
,
Andrew G. Lee
1   School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
3   Department of Ophthalmology, Blanton Eye Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas
4   Department of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
5   Department of Ophthalmology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
6   University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
7   Texas A and M College of Medicine, Bryan, Texas
8   Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa
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Abstract

Background In this study, we reviewed a select sample of ophthalmology literature to determine if there was a correlation between Altimetric and traditional citation-based and impact factor metrics. We hypothesized that Altmetric score would more closely correlate with impact factor and citations in 2016.

Methods Journal Citation Reports for the year 2013 was used to find the 15 highest impact factor ophthalmology journals in 2013. Then Elsevier's Scopus was used to identify the 10 most cited articles from each journal for the years 2013 and 2016. Metrics for all identified articles were collected using the Altmetric Bookmarklet, and date of Twitter account creation was noted for journals with such an account. Altmetric scores, impact factor, and citation counts were tabulated for each article. Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) determined correlation of independent variables (number of citations or impact factor) with dependent variable (Altmetric score). For our Twitter analysis, account age was the independent variable and calculated correlation coefficients (r) were the dependent variable. Proportion of variance was determined with a coefficient of determination (R 2).

Results This study included 300 articles, evenly split between 2013 and 2016. Within the 2013 cohort, three journals had significant positive correlations between citation count and Altmetric score. For the 2016 cohort, both Altmetric score and citation count (r = 0.583, p < 0.001) and Altmetric score and impact factor (r = 0.183, p = 0.025) revealed significant positive correlations. In 2016, two journals were found to have significant correlations between Altmetric score and citation number. Neither year revealed a significant correlation between the age of a journal's Twitter profile and the relationship between Altmetric score and citation count. In each year, Twitter accounted for the highest number of mentions.

Conclusion The findings suggest that correlation between Altmetric score and traditional quality metric scores may be increasing. Altmetric score was correlated with impact factor and number of citations in 2016 but not 2013. At this time, Altmetrics are best used as an adjunct that is complementary but not an alternative to traditional bibliometrics for assessing academic productivity and impact.

Keywords

citations - Twitter - ophthalmology - Altmetric - social media


Publication History

Received: 21 October 2020

Accepted: 22 February 2021

Article published online:
30 June 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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