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Vieli M, Battilana B, Alamri A, Rabiei K, Lippa L, Karekezi C, Kolias A, Serra C, Regli L, Mathiesen T, Staartjes VE. A randomized controlled trial of social media promotion in neurosurgical publishing. Neurosurg Rev 2024; 47:363. [PMID: 39060778 PMCID: PMC11282115 DOI: 10.1007/s10143-024-02597-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2024] [Revised: 05/25/2024] [Accepted: 07/19/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024]
Abstract
The importance of social media has seen a dramatic increase in recent times, but much about its influence in academia is still unknown. To date, no comparative studies analysing the effect of social media promotion on citation counts have been undertaken in neurosurgical publishing. We randomized 177 articles published in Acta Neurochirurgica from May to September 2020. The 89 articles in the intervention group received a standardized social media promotion through one post on our official Twitter/X account, whereas the 88 articles in the control group did not receive any social media promotion. Citation counts, website visits and PDF downloads were tracked at one and two years post-promotion. We found no significant difference in number of citations at one year post-promotion (Intervention: 1.85 ± 3.94 vs. Control: 2.67 ± 6.65, p = 0.322) or at two years (5.35 ± 7.39 vs. 7.09 ± 12.1, p = 0.249). Similarly, no difference was detected in website visits at one (587.46 ± 568.04 vs. 590.65 ± 636.25, p = 0.972) or two years (865.79 ± 855.80 vs. 896.31 ± 981.97, p = 0.826) and PDF downloads at one (183.40 ± 152.02 vs. 187.78 ± 199.01, p = 0.870) or two years (255.99 ± 218.97 vs. 260.97 ± 258.44, p = 0.890). In a randomized study, a structured promotion of general neurosurgical articles on Twitter/X did not significantly impact citation count, website visits, or PDF downloads compared to no social media promotion. Combined with published evidence to date, the impact of social media on citation counts in academic publishing ultimately remains unclear.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moira Vieli
- Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience & Microsurgical Neuroanatomy (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Bianca Battilana
- Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience & Microsurgical Neuroanatomy (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Alex Alamri
- Department of Neurosurgery, The Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, London, UK
| | - Katrin Rabiei
- Institution of Neuroscience & Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden
- Art Clinic Hospitals, Gothenburg, Sweden
| | - Laura Lippa
- Dept of Neurosurgery, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Senese, Siena, Italy
| | - Claire Karekezi
- Neurosurgery Unit, Department of Surgery, Rwanda Military Hospital, Kigali, Rwanda
| | - Angelos Kolias
- Division of Neurosurgery, Addenbrooke's Hospital, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Carlo Serra
- Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience & Microsurgical Neuroanatomy (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Luca Regli
- Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience & Microsurgical Neuroanatomy (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Tiit Mathiesen
- University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Victor E Staartjes
- Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience & Microsurgical Neuroanatomy (MICN) Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Group Leader, MICN Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Zurich, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University of Zurich, Frauenklinikstrasse 10, Zurich, CH 8091, Switzerland.
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Madhugiri VS, Venkatesan S. Does Reader Engagement with Neurosurgery Journal Websites Correlate with the Number of Citations Received by Articles? Neurol India 2024; 72:352-357. [PMID: 38691481 DOI: 10.4103/ni.ni_38_22] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 05/03/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Medicine has begun adapting to new information-sharing paradigms in the hyper-connected social media era. In this milieu, the role of journal websites in the dissemination of clinical and research information needs to be reevaluated. OBJECTIVE We sought to explore whether reader engagement with neurosurgical journal websites, reflected by the number of article views and downloads, correlated with the eventual number of citations received by the articles. METHODS The websites of all Medline indexed neurosurgical journals were screened to identify those that provided information regarding the number of abstract and full text views and downloads. Articles published in these journals between July 2010 and June 2011 were included in this analysis. Various article attributes were identified and the number of citations per article was obtained from Google Scholar. The impact factors of the selected journals for the year 2010 were obtained from the Journal Citation Reports. RESULTS Twenty-two journals that had published 2527 articles were finally included in this analysis. The number of abstract views, full-text views, and downloads all correlated strongly with the journal impact factors in 2010 as well as the eventual citations per article. The number of article downloads independently predicted the citations per article on multivariate analysis. Neurology India had significantly higher article views and downloads but lower citations per article than the other journals. CONCLUSIONS Readers were found to engage significantly with neurosurgical journal websites and therefore, open access to articles would lead to increased visibility of articles, resulting in higher citation rates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Venkatesh S Madhugiri
- Department of Neurosurgery, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
| | - Subeikshanan Venkatesan
- Department of Neurosurgery, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, India
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Saravudecha C, Na Thungfai D, Phasom C, Gunta-in S, Metha A, Punyaphet P, Sookruay T, Sakuludomkan W, Koonrungsesomboon N. Hybrid Gold Open Access Citation Advantage in Clinical Medicine: Analysis of Hybrid Journals in the Web of Science. PUBLICATIONS 2023. [DOI: 10.3390/publications11020021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Biomedical fields have seen a remarkable increase in hybrid Gold open access articles. However, it is uncertain whether the hybrid Gold open access option contributes to a citation advantage, an increase in the citations of articles made immediately available as open access regardless of the article’s quality or whether it involves a trending topic of discussion. This study aimed to compare the citation counts of hybrid Gold open access articles to subscription articles published in hybrid journals. The study aimed to ascertain if hybrid Gold open access publications yield an advantage in terms of citations. This cross-sectional study included the list of hybrid journals under 59 categories in the ‘Clinical Medicine’ group from Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR) during 2018–2021. The number of citable items with ‘Gold Open Access’ and ‘Subscription and Free to Read’ in each journal, as well as the number of citations of those citable items, were extracted from JCR. A hybrid Gold open access citation advantage was computed by dividing the number of citations per citable item with hybrid Gold open access by the number of citations per citable item with a subscription. A total of 498, 636, 1009, and 1328 hybrid journals in the 2018 JCR, 2019 JCR, 2020 JCR, and 2021 JCR, respectively, were included in this study. The citation advantage of hybrid Gold open access articles over subscription articles in 2018 was 1.45 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.24–1.65); in 2019, it was 1.31 (95% CI, 1.20–1.41); in 2020, it was 1.30 (95% CI, 1.20–1.39); and in 2021, it was 1.31 (95% CI, 1.20–1.42). In the ‘Clinical Medicine’ discipline, the articles published in the hybrid journal as hybrid Gold open access had a greater number of citations when compared to those published as a subscription, self-archived, or otherwise openly accessible option.
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Nishikawa-Pacher A. Measuring serendipity with altmetrics and randomness. JOURNAL OF LIBRARIANSHIP AND INFORMATION SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1177/09610006221124338] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Many discussions on serendipitous research discovery stress its unfortunate immeasurability. This unobservability may be due to paradoxes that arise out of the usual conceptualizations of serendipity, such as “accidental” versus “goal-oriented” discovery, or “useful” versus “useless” finds. Departing from a different distinction drawn from information theory—bibliometric redundancy and bibliometric variety—this paper argues otherwise: Serendipity is measurable, namely with the help of altmetrics, but only if the condition of highest bibliometric variety, or randomness, obtains. Randomness means that the publication is recommended without any biases of citation counts, journal impact, publication year, author reputation, semantic proximity, etc. Thus, serendipity must be at play in a measurable way if a paper is recommended randomly, and if users react to that recommendation (observable via altmetrics). A possible design for a serendipity-measuring device would be a Twitter bot that regularly recommends a random scientific publication from a huge corpus to capture the user interactions via altmetrics. Other than its implications for the concept of serendipity, this paper also contributes to a better understanding of altmetrics’ use cases: not only do altmetrics serve the measurement of impact, the facilitation of impact, and the facilitation of serendipity, but also the measurement of serendipity.
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