Usage pattern comparison of the same scholarly articles between Web of Science (WoS) and Springer

Abstract

Usage metrics have become increasingly popular in scientometric in recent years. While most current researches are limited to one single publisher or citation index database. In this study, the usage metrics are extended from one single platform to multiple platforms. We collect and analyze the usage counts of twenty journals in the field of biomedicine, computer, engineering and mathematics respectively from Springer and Web of Science (WoS). Statistics, correlation analysis, Jaccard similarity coefficient and overlay mapping are combined to explore differences and similarities between WoS usage counts and Springer usage counts. It is found that compared with the pay-for-access WoS, users prefer to visit publisher websites by the free, convenient and quick routes, such as bookmarks or general search engines. Then it depicts that Springer usage counts have better stratification in disciplines than WoS usage counts and Springer usage counts are less skewedly distributed than WoS usage counts in most disciplines. It also reveals that there are certain relationships between WoS usage counts and Springer usage counts. Finally, it demonstrates that WoS and Springer share a broad user interests in common and WoS and Springer also have their own unique user interests.