Career development tips for today's nursing academic: bibliometrics, altmetrics and social media

Challenges and Opportunities in Recruiting Research Participants Using Facebook: Lessons Learned from an Exemplar Study

BACKGROUND

Facebook is a prominent social medial platform frequently used for business marketing. Researchers are starting to recognize the utility of this platform for developing research awareness, information dissemination, and more recently participant recruitment.

PURPOSE

This paper will provide an overview of methods used in Facebook recruitment through an exemplar study. It will highlight successes and challenges and provide insight into future opportunities for its' use.

METHODS

Two methods of Facebook recruitment are outlined in this paper: the use of Facebook groups and paid advertising. A step-by-step guide highlights how researchers can implement these specific methods of Facebook recruitment.

RESULTS

Facebook was successfully utilized to recruit participants in the exemplar study. Recruitment was completed over a period of 82 days with a total cost of $157.09 Canadian dollars.

CONCLUSION

Facebook is a viable method of recruiting research participants. This method can be cost-effective, timely, and efficient in comparison to traditional research recruitment methods. However, one must balance the benefits and challenges of this type of recruitment.

Amplifying research influence through the social network, open access publishing, and international collaboration: A mediation analysis on nursing studies literature

INTRODUCTION

Research impact and influence are commonly measured quantitatively by citation count received by research articles. Many institutes also use citation count as one of the factors in faculty performance appraisal and candidate selection of academic positions. Various strategies were recommended to amplify and accelerate research influence, particularly citation counts, by bringing research articles to a wider reach for potential readers. However, no prior empirical study was conducted to examine and valid effects of those strategies on nursing studies. This study examines and verifies the direct effects and mediation effects of some strategies, namely, the use of Twitter, international collaboration, the use of ResearchGate, and open access publishing, for amplifying the citation of research and review articles in nursing studies.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study design.

METHODS

Articles published in top nursing journals in 2016 were identified in PUBMED and the citation metrics for individual articles until 2021 were extracted from Scopus. The primary outcome was the citation count of the article, while the tweet count on Twitter of the article was considered a mediator. The predictors included paper type, the total number of authors, the proportion of authors with a ResearchGate account in the article, funding support, open-accessed article, and the number of different countries stated in the authors' affiliation. A mediation analysis was conducted to examine the predictors' direct and indirect effects (i.e., via tweet count) on the citation count of the article.

RESULTS

A total of 2210 articles were included in this study, of which 223 (10.1%) were review articles. The median (IQR) number of Scopus citations, tweets, countries, and percentage of authors with ResearchGate accounts were 12 (6-21), 2 (0-6), 1 (1-1), and 75% (50%-100%) respectively. In the mediation analysis, tweet count, article type, number of countries, percentage of authors with a ResearchGate account, and journal impact factors in 2014 were positively associated with the Scopus citation count. The effects of article type, open access, and journals' impact factors in 2014 on Scopus citation count were mediated by the tweet count.

CONCLUSION

This study provides empirical support for some strategies researchers may employ to amplify the citation count of their research articles. The methodology of our study can be extended to compare research influence between entities (e.g., across countries or institutes).

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

The citation refers to the research work cited by peers and is one of the indicators for research impact. Higher citations implied the research work is read and used by others, therefore, understanding the associated factors with higher citations is critical.

An Exploratory Study of Social Media Use and Management by Nursing Journals

Social media applications are growing across the globe to bring new knowledge and information to target audiences. The use and management of social media in nursing journals have yet to be investigated on a large scale. This cross-sectional study was the first to explore the management of social media and the role of social media editors at nursing journals. Seventy-five nursing journals have pioneered social media as platforms for knowledge dissemination. Almost 51% of nursing journals from this sample are now using social media editors or a designated person to manage online applications, promote journal contents, and increase journal reach.

Clarivate listed nursing journals in 2020: what they publish and how they measure use of social media

Objectives

To investigate what the most common types of articles that nursing journals purport to publish are and what they actually publish. And to investigate the extent to which academic nursing journals listed by Clarivate track alternative metrics.

Methods

Journals included in the nursing Journal Citation Report (JCR) journal category in 2019 described as nursing were identified and considered suitable for inclusion in the analysis. Instructions for authors were reviewed online and mention of each type of article is identified. The tables of contents of each issue of each journal published during 2019 were examined and the types of articles published were extracted to a spreadsheet into permitted article types and published articles. Likewise, the use of alternative metrics by each journal was extracted to a spreadsheet. Pearson's and Spearman's correlation analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between articles permitted and articles published.

Results

In the 2020 JCR, 123 journals were listed. The most common article type permitted was original research (n = 117), followed by review papers (n = 116), and discussion papers (n = 63). Original research (n = 7045); review papers (n = 1268); discussion papers (n = 1225); editorials (n = 793) and commentaries (n = 776) were the most commonly published categories of the article. Of journals examined, 108 (96.8%) tracked mentions on social media and the Altmetric score was most commonly used (75%). There was a strong correlation (r = 0.73; P = 0.002) between the numbers of articles permitted and published and a strong correlation (ρ = 0.86; P < 0.001) in terms of the rankings of the permitted and published articles.

Conclusions

There is a relationship between the most frequently permitted article types and those published, especially for the most frequent categories of both. Original articles, review papers, and discussion papers are the backbone of academic publishing in nursing with original articles vastly outweighing review and discussion papers. Most Clarivate listed journals now use some method of tracking alternative metrics indicating how seriously publishers take their social media profiles.

Expanding Reach of Occupational Health Knowledge: Contributing Subject-Matter Expertise to Wikipedia as a Class Assignment

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and several university programs have collaborated on a large effort to expand and improve occupational safety and health content in Wikipedia using a platform developed by Wiki Education. This article describes the initiative, student contributions, and evaluations of this effort by instructors from two universities between 2016 and 2020. The Wiki Education platform allowed instructors to set timelines and track students’ progress throughout the semester while students accessed training to best expand health content in Wikipedia. Students chose topics in occupational health based on their interests and by a set of topics deemed as a priority by the “WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health.” Students’ contributions were peer-reviewed by instructors, NIOSH Wikipedians-in-Residence, and traditional Wikipedians. Students presented their projects in class at the end of the semester. Students from both schools expanded 55 articles, created 8 new articles, and translated 2 articles to Spanish, adding 1270 references; these articles were viewed over 8 million times by May 2020. Feedback received from the implementation suggested that students learned about science communication and digital literacy—providing valuable content on occupational health while reducing misinformation in the public domain. The process of identifying and addressing gaps in occupational health in Wikipedia requires participation and engagement toward improving access to information that otherwise would be restricted to the scientific literature, often behind a paywall. The Wikipedia assignment proved to be an engaging approach for instruction and information literacy. It helped students improve their science communication skills and digital literacy, tools that are likely to be critical for successful communication of science in their future careers.

ALTMETRICS AND CITATION METRICS AS COMPLEMENTARY INDICATORS FOR RESEARCH MANAGEMENT

The quality and impact of scholarly articles are traditionally evaluated using metrics that put citation counts at the center. In the era of digitization, advanced online platforms and social media have transformed the dissemination of scientific information results and introduced new metrics for evaluating the influence of scholarly outputs and planning research studies. Alternative metrics (altmetrics) have emerged as tools for immediate measuring of scholarly outputs upon their online publication and dissemination through numerous online platforms, including social media channels. The Altmetrtic Attention Score by Altmetric.com has gained its global importance as an integral indicator for evaluation of constantly changing societal influence of individual articles. To a large extent, this and other social media metrics complement established citation metrics, allowing to visualize and predict implications at early stages of post-publication promotion. This article overviews characterstics of various altmetric tools and their growing roles for planning and evaluating scientific research.

Assessment of the different citation systems in the scientific publication of nursing authors from Spanish-speaking countries

OBJECTIVE

To assess the distribution of citations of nursing authors in Spanish in Google Scholar as well as to compare the possible differences between this source and Web of Science and Scopus.

METHOD

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study based on the citation systems offered by Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus.

RESULTS

Nursing researchers present a verified mean h-index of 7.82 in Academic Google. 74% of researchers belong to the academic field, compared to 26%, who are in health services. Most of them live in Spain (83%), followed by Colombia (12%), Mexico (4%), and Chile (1%). In Spain, the community with the largest number of researchers is Andalusia (41.5%), followed by Valencia (14.6%), and Madrid (7.3%).

CONCLUSION

The Google Scholar citation system requires adjustments in its algorithm for selecting works and citations, and it should also allow some system of confirmation by authors. Nursing can have relatively low h-index values compared to other courses due to short research development.

The rise of #SocialMedia in the Nephrology world

Social media (SoMe) use has increased exponentially in the last decade and is having a profound impact on the Nephrology world. The use of these platforms is contributing to continuous educational and professional development by exposing nephrologists to new research, allowing them to connect with experts, to exchange experiences, or to engage in scientific debates. Here, we introduce the basics of SoMe, focusing on Twitter because it is the most popular SoMe platform used by the medical community for professional purposes. We will review the main education platforms and tools available, such as visual abstracts, blogs, tweetorials, videos, and podcasts. We will also focus on their different applications for educational purposes such as online journal clubs, webinars, or online games. The role of SoMe in academic promotion, dissemination of research, expansion of nephrology societies and coverage of scientific events will also be discussed. In the end, we will reflect on SoMe risks and limitations, much-needed developments in SoMe platforms and the challenges ahead of us.

Bibliometric analysis of qualitative research on patients' experiences of intestinal stoma published between 2002 - 2018

AIMS

The purpose of this paper was to perform a bibliometric analysis of the production of qualitative research in scientific journals through aggregation by levels and to identify factors of diversity, such as types of designs, in qualitative research on the experience of having an intestinal stoma between 2002 and 2018.

DESIGN

Descriptive bibliometric study focused on the production of qualitative research on the subject of study, on three levels: micro, meso and macro.

METHODS

Databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Knowledge, Scopus, SciELO, CUIDEN, Lilacs and Google Scholar were used to collect the data, between August - November 2018.

RESULTS

Nursing was the main area of knowledge. Brazil was the predominant country of origin. The most productive journal was the Journal of Wound, Ostomy & Continence Nursing. English and Portuguese were the main languages of scientific communication. The number of authors was typically between 2 and 6. Authors conducted descriptive and phenomenological studies.

CONCLUSION

The present bibliometric study helps us to map the qualitative research on the experiences of individuals with an intestinal stoma and to understand patterns in the designs, methods, disciplines and journals involved in this area of research. This will allow nurses to have a leading contribution to stoma care at their disposal.

Share or perish: Social media and the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing

The impact of published research is sometimes measured by the number of citations an individual article accumulates. However, the time from publication to citation can be extensive. Years may pass before authors are able to measure the impact of their publication. Social media provides individuals and organizations a powerful medium with which to share information. The power of social media is sometimes harnessed to share scholarly works, especially journal article citations and quotes. A non-traditional bibliometric is required to understand the impact social media has on disseminating scholarly works/research. The International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN) appointed a social media editor as of 1 January 2017 to implement a strategy to increase the impact and reach of the journal's articles. To measure the impact of the IJMHN social media strategy, quantitative data for the eighteen months prior to the social media editor start date, and the eighteen months after that date (i.e.: from 01 July 2015 to 30 June 2018) were acquired and analysed. Quantitative evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of one journal's social media strategy in increasing the reach and readership of the articles it publishes. This information may be of interest to those considering where to publish their research, those wanting to amplify the reach of their research, those who fund research, and journal editors and boards.

Contribution of Italian nursing professors to international Literature: 2000 - 2016 review

BACKGROUND

The purpose of the study was to assess Italian nurse academics' scientific activity by exploring their publications in international journals.

BACKGROUND

The scientific production of a discipline's academics is a requisite for the university accreditation process and for employment in academic positions. It can also be used as an indicator of the maturity and importance of a given discipline in a country. Italian nurse academics' scientific production has not been analyzed recently.

METHOD

Quantitative descriptive study on an observation period of 16 years, from 2000 to 2016.

METHODS

All Italian full-time academics in the sector of General, Clinical, and Pediatric Nursing Sciences were identified, based on selection criteria. All their publications in indexed international journals were systematically collected between November 2016 and February 2017.

FINDINGS

Twenty-five Italian nurse academics were identified, and 450 of their publications met all our inclusion criteria, with a mean of 18 publications per author (range 0-88). There was a steady growth in the number of publications over time. Sixty-five percent of articles were published in nursing journals. Eighty-six percent of the publications were on nursing topics, the most popular being clinical issues (53.8%). Eighty percent of the publications were "applied research articles" and most of them adopted a quantitative approach with a descriptive study design. Hospitals and clinics were the most common settings studied, while patients and caregivers were the participants most often involved. Foreign coauthors contributed to 30% of the articles.

DISCUSSION

Italian nursing academics contribute adequately to scientific production in the nursing sector.

Measuring the social impact of nursing research: An insight into altmetrics

AIMS

The objectives of this study were to (a) identify nursing journal articles that provoked the most online activity and discussion and (b) assess the association between these articles' altmetric scores and publication characteristics, citation counts; and publishing journals metrics.

BACKGROUND

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, have recently emerged as a complementary way of measuring the societal impact of research by assessing the public engagement with research output. To date, no studies have yet investigated the online attention about scientific papers published in the nursing field.

DESIGN

Integration of quantitative and qualitative synthesized evidence.

DATA SOURCES AND REVIEW METHODS

InCites Journal Citation Report was used to identify a list of nursing journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. Altmetric Explorer was selected as an altmetrics harvesting tool. The search in Altmetric Explorer yielded 66,608 research outputs from 118 nursing journals. The articles with the top 100 altmetric attention score (AAS) were identified and a new search, limited to only those 100 articles, was run to produce aggregate metrics specific to those articles. The articles were also exported for thematic analysis.

RESULTS

The median AAS for the 100 articles was 248, ranging from 138 - 649. The articles were mostly discussed on Twitter, followed by news outlets and Mendeley. Articles indexed in the nursing journals category attracted low online attention compared with articles published in other health journal categories. Twitter remained the dominant source of attention over the years 2012-2018, followed distantly by news outlets. Most online attention came from the USA and the UK. Of the top 100 articles included in the study, the Journal of Advanced Nursing published the highest number of articles (N = 26; Median AAS = 179). The AAS was not significantly different between articles published in Q1 journals and those published in Q2 and Q3 journals. There was a significant relationship between articles' AASs and their citation counts on Scopus and Web of Science. Publication date was significantly related to citation counts on Scopus and Web of Science but not with AASs.

CONCLUSION

Altmetrics will likely continue to evolve alongside the rapidly expanding use of social media and online platforms. As nursing continues to strive to have our research and scholarship inform policy, translated into practice and recognized for its scientific merit, we have to remain vigilant about the best ways to disseminate the important work we are doing. Research, such as this study, will allow nursing scholars to benchmark our progress as we adapt to the changing environment for measuring impact and quality in the digital age.

Bibliometric analysis of six nursing journals from the Web of Science, 2012-2017

AIM

The purpose of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of the six most important nursing journals according to the impact factor of the Science Citation Index through Web of Science^® . The following journals were included: International Journal of Nursing Studies, Nurse Education Today, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Nursing Outlook, Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing and the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

BACKGROUND

In the nursing field, bibliometric analysis and maps have been used to analyse the production of some journals but not for the comparison of different journals.

DESIGN/METHOD

Using descriptive bibliometrics, we studied scientific production of different journals and bibliometric maps were used to visualize the content of published articles.

RESULTS

The six journals included showed that 3,937 articles were written by 1,1371 authors from 2,980 institutions and 84 countries from 2012 - 2017. Journal of Advanced Nursing had a greater number of publications and citations. The most prolific authors showed a tendency to publish first in Journal of Advanced Nursing and then in International Journal of Nursing Studies and Nurse Education Today. The frequency of citation was higher in International Journal of Nursing Studies followed by Journal of Advanced Nursing. The most collaborative authors and those with the most co-citations published more than half of their publications in Journal of Advanced Nursing. The topics most commonly researched by these authors were job satisfaction, collaborative practices, and nurse leaders.

CONCLUSION

This bibliometric analysis contributes to the understanding of the current state of nursing research and its evolution.

Impact of Low Back Pain Clinical Trials Measured by the Altmetric Score: Cross-Sectional Study

Background

There is interest from authors and publishers in sharing the results of their studies over the Internet in order to increase their readership. In this way, articles tend to be discussed and the impact of these articles tends to be increased. In order to measure this type of impact, a new score (named Altmetric) was created. Altmetric aims to understand the individual impact of each article through the attention attracted online.

Objective

The primary objective of this study was to analyze potential factors related with the publishing journal and the publishing trial that could be associated with Altmetric scores on a random sample of low back pain randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The secondary objective of this study was to describe the characteristics of these trials and their Altmetric scores.

Methods

We searched for all low back pain RCTs indexed on the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro; www.pedro.org.au) published between 2010 and 2015. A total of 200 articles were randomly selected, and we extracted data related to the publishing trial, the publishing journal, methodological quality of the trials (measured by the 0-10 item PEDro scale), and total and individual scores of Altmetric mentioned and Altmetric reader. The study was a cross-sectional study, and multivariate regression models and descriptive statistics were used.

Results

A total of four variables were associated with Altmetric mentioned score: impact factor (β-coefficient=3.4 points), number of years since publication (β-coefficient=–4.9 points), number of citations divided by years since publication (β-coefficient=5.2 points), and descriptive title (β-coefficient=–29.4 points). Only one independent variable was associated with Altmetric reader score: number of citations divided by years since publication (β-coefficient=10.1 points, 95% CI 7.74-12.46). We also found that the majority of articles were published in English, with a descriptive title, and published in open access journals endorsing the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement.

Conclusions

Researchers should preferably select high impact factor journals for submission and use declarative or interrogative titles, as these factors are likely to increase the visibility of their studies in social media.

Researcher and Author Profiles: Opportunities, Advantages, and Limitations

Currently available online profiling platforms offer various services for researchers and authors. Opening an individual account and filling it with scholarly contents increase visibility of research output and boost its impact. This article overviews some of the widely used and emerging profiling platforms, highlighting their tools for sharing scholarly items, crediting individuals, and facilitating networking. Global bibliographic databases and search platforms, such as Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar, are widely used for profiling authors with indexed publications. Scholarly networking websites, such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu, provide indispensable services for researchers poorly visible elsewhere on the Internet. Several specialized platforms are designed to offer profiling along with their main functionalities, such as reference management and archiving. The Open Researcher and Contributor Identification (ORCID) project has offered a solution to the author name disambiguation. It has been integrated with numerous bibliographic databases, platforms, and manuscript submission systems to help research managers and journal editors select and credit the best reviewers, and other scholarly contributors. Individuals with verifiable reviewer and editorial accomplishments are also covered by Publons, which is an increasingly recognized service for publicizing and awarding reviewer comments. Currently available profiling formats have numerous advantages and some limitations. The advantages are related to their openness and chances of boosting the researcher impact. Some of the profiling websites are complementary to each other. The underutilization of various profiling websites and their inappropriate uses for promotion of 'predatory' journals are among reported limitations. A combined approach to the profiling systems is advocated in this article.

A bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1976-2015

AIM

The aim of this study was to examine the publication characteristics and development of Journal of Advanced Nursing during its 40-year history.

BACKGROUND

Bibliometric studies of single journals have been performed, but to the best of our knowledge, bibliometric analysis and bibliometric mapping have not yet been used to analyse the literature production of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

DESIGN/METHOD

Using descriptive bibliometrics, we studied the dynamics and trend patterns of literature production and identified document types and the most prolific authors, papers, institutions and countries. Bibliometric mapping was used to visualize the content of published articles and determine the most prolific research terms and themes published in Journal of Advanced Nursing and their evolution through time. We were also interested in determining whether there were any 'Sleeping Beauties' among the articles published in the journal.

RESULTS

The study revealed a positive trend in literature production, although recently, the number of articles published in Journal of Advanced Nursing has slightly decreased. The most productive institutions are from the United Kingdom, which ranks in the highest place in terms of successful publishing in the journal. Thematic analysis showed that the most prolific themes corresponded to the basic aims and scope of the journal.

CONCLUSION

Journal of Advanced Nursing contributes to advances in nursing research, practice and education as well as the quality of health care, teamwork and family care, with an emphasis on knowledge transfer and partnership between various healthcare professionals.