A Correlation Study Between Altmetrics and Citations Using the Parameters of Title Rendering, Open Access, and Funding Status

Abstract

A correlation study between professional academic citations and social media (SM)-dominated Altmetrics measures is of interest to library professionals. Three parameters namely, title wording, open access (OA) facility, and research funding credentials impact the citation of an article. The study investigates how these parameters relate to the literature related to COVID-19, SM, and misinformation. The citations were obtained from the Dimension- Altmetric citation database. The database was searched using the search terms “Covid-19 AND Social Media AND Misinformation”. The Mann-Whitney-U test, pearson correlation and point- biserial correlation analysis were used to analyse the 1,489 citations. A moderate positive pearson correlation (r= 0.429, p= 0.00) between the altmetric score and dimension-based citations was found. A significant association between the altmetric score and OA compared to those of non-OA articles was observed. No significant association was found between the altmetric score and the use of specific words in the title of the article except for the length of the title. Articles that received financial support had significantly higher altmetric scores but, in the case of citations, this was not significant.