F1000Prime: an analysis of discipline-specific reader data from Mendeley

Robin Haunschild,Lutz Bornmann

doi:10.12688/f1000research.6062.2

Robin Haunschild, Lutz Bornmann

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6062.2

Copy DOI

Journal: F1000Research	Publication Date: May 8, 2015
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research

Abstract

We have used the F1000Prime recommended paper set (n= 114,582 biomedical papers) to inquire the number of Mendeley readers per (sub-) discipline via the Mendeley Application Programming Interface (API). Although the (sub-) discipline of Mendeley readers is self-assigned and not mandatory, we find that a large share (99.9%) of readers at Mendeley does share their (sub-) discipline. As expected, we find most readers of F1000Prime recommended papers work in the disciplines of biology and medicine. A network analysis reveals strong connections between the disciplines of engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, and medicine.

Highlights

Interest in the broad impact of research (Bornmann, 2012, Bornmann, 2013, King’s College London and Digital Science, 2015) has resulted in new forms of impact measurements
We found 6,263,913 Mendeley reader counts for the F1000Prime publication set
For the F1000Prime publication set, the vast majority (74.94%) of Mendeley users is found in the “miscellaneous” sub-discipline of all disciplines

Summary

Introduction

Interest in the broad impact of research (Bornmann, 2012, Bornmann, 2013, King’s College London and Digital Science, 2015) has resulted in new forms of impact measurements. Traditional forms of impact measurements using bibliometrics only allow the measurement of impact on research itself These new forms which have been named as altmetrics (abbreviation of alternative metrics) pretend to measure the impact of research on other areas of society (than research) by counting the mentions of papers in social media: “Alternative metrics, sometimes shortened to just altmetrics, is an umbrella term covering new ways of approaching, measuring and providing evidence for impact” Altmetrics is considered in the Snowball Metrics project (Colledge, 2014) This project compiled a set of clearly defined indicators which will be used by participating universities (mostly Anglo-American universities) for research evaluation purposes. Funders have declared interest in using these metrics (Dinsmore et al, 2014) It seems that altmetrics will be used in practice before scientometrics research has produced standards on their reliable, fair and valid application (Weller, 2015)

Methods

Results

Conclusion