High-Impact Articles-Citations, Downloads, and Altmetric Score.

Abstract

As the editor, I have the honor and pleasure of reading and reviewing the best manuscripts in the discipline of facial plastic surgery. I am often asked the questions by potential authors: “What is JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery looking for in an article? What are the factors in deciding which articles are accepted for publication?” I have pointed to my inaugural editorial1 that describes ourmissionandvision statement that articulates 3 key themes—showcasing the best science, educating our targeted readership, and framing the contemporary and key issues of our time. However, I’ve often wondered if there was a more concise or visually crisp way to articulate mymessage. Now, fortunately, through the creativity of our web and media team, the new JAMA Network article dashboard captures theessenceofwhatour journaldesires—that is, “thehighimpact article”—the number of citations, number of downloads, and altmetric score (Figure). These 3 metrics are not all-inclusiveor all thatmatters, but theydo represent the3distinct themes I’vementioned:metrics thatmake an article desirable from a journal perspective. The citation metric is one that is likely most familiar and recognizedby thescientific community.Therearemetrics such asH-index for authors (basedonnumberof citations andpublications) that are used by academic institutions as one consideration in faculty promotion decisions. Impact factors for journals are calculated by counting all of the citations to every article published in a journal divided by the number of “substantial” articles (original research, long reviews, special communications) published in that specific journal during the 2precedingyears.This2-yearwindowisadifficultone formore clinically based journals like JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery because even landmark clinical studies or reviews often experience a lag in terms of its citation frequency as opposed to basic sciencearticles that tendtobecitedmore frequentlysince the knowledge and reporting cycle runs on a faster pace. On ourwebsite, “themost cited” recentlypublishedarticle is a review on complications related to injectable soft-tissue filler (>3400 views, 16 citations, altmetric score of 3).2 Whatelse is important forarticleselectionsbeyondthepossibility of an article being cited? Readership interest is another key component, with number of recent article downloads being a metric that describes this factor. This may be a scientific article (often clinical science) or an educationally focused article—for example, an in-depth topic review, surgical vignette, or an opinion piece. On our website the “most read” (ie, downloaded) article in the past 31 days is a fulllength clinical article on the topic of thread-lift complications (>23 000 views, 2 citations, altmetric score of 9).3 However, even the short educational piece (a Surgical Pearl) by Chu and Davis4 that was published online as recently as May 15, 2015,4 has close to 1100 views. In essence, this metric is describing what makes this journal a valuable resource.