Evaluating the Relationship between Bibliometrics and Altmetrics: A Case Study of Russian Publications SCI-E (2015)

Abstract

A data array of Russian publications for 2015 registered in the SCI-E DB was evaluated for the correlation between traditional bibliometrics and altmetrics. A special methodology based on the Kendall rank correlation coefficient was developed for this purpose. In the case of publications, the correlation between the citedness of a publication (the value of the TC field in the SCI-E DB) and its usage (fields U1 and U2) was evaluated. In the case of source journals for the indicated publications, the correlation was determined between the Cited_Half-Life value and the values of journal-usage metrics, which were determined as the mean U1 (U2) value taken for all publications of the journal. It was established that the nature of journal distribution according to the Cited_Half-Life value of the source journals for Russian publications practically coincides with the nature of the distribution of source journals for publications of the entire global flow: the Russian distribution shifted somewhat toward larger Cited_Half-Life values (the median of the global distribution was 6.1, while that of the Russian distribution was 6.2). This shift increased sharply upon considering the number of Russian and global journal publications, respectively (the median of the global distribution was 5.8, while that of the Russian distribution was 6.8).