Highly-cited Papers Research Articles

Citation Classics in Consumer Neuroscience, Neuromarketing and Neuroaesthetics: Identification and Conceptual Analysis.

Neuromarketing, consumer neuroscience and neuroaesthetics are a broad research area of neuroscience with an extensive background in scientific publications. Thus, the present study aims to identify the highly cited papers (HCPs) in this research field, to deliver a summary of the academic work produced during the last decade in this area, and to show patterns, features, and trends that define the past, present, and future of this specific area of knowledge. The HCPs show a perspective of those documents that, historically, have attracted great interest from a research community and that could be considered as the basis of the research field. In this study, we retrieved 907 documents and analyzed, through H-Classics methodology, 50 HCPs identified in the Web of Science (WoS) during the period 2010–2019. The H-Classic approach offers an objective method to identify core knowledge in neuroscience disciplines such as neuromarketing, consumer neuroscience, and neuroaesthetics. To accomplish this study, we used Bibliometrix R Package and SciMAT software. This analysis provides results that give us a useful insight into the development of this field of research, revealing those scientific actors who have made the greatest contribution to its development: authors, institutions, sources, countries as well as documents and references.

Highly Cited Papers at the Spanish Domestic Level.

This paper presents a methodological proposal based on the identification of highly cited papers (HCPs) at domestic-level in the Spanish Public University System (SUPE), in order to find the most outstanding publications in the local context. The principal aim is to detect different activity and impact profiles among Spanish universities and differentiate those institutions that play a more significant role. To determine which and how many are the highly cited papers at the domestic level (HCP-DL) collected in the Web of Science, three citation thresholds (1, 5, and 10%) were established. Thematic classification in Incites/Essential Science Indicators areas is used. The results show a preponderance of HCPs in the field of Space Science, while the polytechnic universities have high visibility in the Computer Science area. It has been observed that the presence of HCPs in a given area is involved with universities specialized in teaching and research activities. In absolute terms, the big non-specialized universities are major producers of HCPs and hold the leading positions in our results. However, when efficiency is analyzed in relative terms, some small, specialized universities reveal themselves to be more efficient at producing HCPs (% of HCPs or citations per HCP). We think that this methodology, due to its simplicity, its ease of calculation, and the knowledge it provides, can be very useful to analyze the national systems of any country, in order to know the impact and visibility of the research carried out in its scientific institutions or research areas.

Characterizing Highly Cited Papers in Mass Cytometry through H-Classics.

Simple SummaryThe study of cell features has historically been key for the progress of biological sciences and its relevance remains intact. In recent years, mass cytometry has emerged as a promising and powerful technology, capable of studying multiple parameters of cells in the same sample. Mass cytometry has been quickly applied to many research areas, particularly to the study of the immune system for different purposes, in which the simultaneous analysis of a large number of proteins is crucial. However, despite being a technique that is on the rise, its performance in scientific publications has not yet been evaluated. In this work, a bibliometric methodology known as H-Classics was applied to analyse the most relevant articles, known as highly cited papers (HCPs), and determine the main scientific producers (authors, institutions, and countries) and trends around mass cytometry research field. The results confirmed a high interest and application in immunological studies. The identified HCPs came from prestigious institutions and were published in high impact journals. These results may help researchers to expand their knowledge and to establish new valuable collaborative networks around mass cytometry.Mass cytometry (CyTOF) is a relatively novel technique for the multiparametric analysis of single-cell features with an increasing central role in cell biology, immunology, pharmacology, and biomedicine. This technique mixes the fundamentals of flow cytometry with mass spectrometry and is mainly used for in-depth studies of the immune system and diseases with a significant immune load, such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and viral diseases like HIV or the recently emerged COVID-19, produced by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The objective of this study was to provide a useful insight into the evolution of the mass cytometry research field, revealing the knowledge structure (conceptual and social) and authors, countries, sources, documents, and organizations that have made the most significant contribution to its development. We retrieved 937 articles from the Web of Science (2010–2019), analysed 71 Highly Cited Papers (HCP) through the H-Classics methodology and computed the data by using Bibliometrix R package. HCP sources corresponded to high-impact journals, such as Nature Biotechnology and Cell, and its production was concentrated in the US, and specifically Stanford University, affiliation of the most relevant authors in the field. HCPs analysis confirmed great interest in the study of the immune system and complex data processing in the mass cytometry research field.

Visual Analysis of the External Characteristics and Research Hotspots of Literatures in International Forensic Science.

Objective To analyze the forensic science-related literature included in the Web of Science database in the recent decade through bibliometric methods, to provide reference for relevant research. Methods Literatures were searched in 3 ways： Subject search, Journal search and Institution search. The annual distribution, national （regional） distribution, institution distribution, journal distribution and the research hotspots of the related literatures were analyzed through Thomson Data Analyzer （TDA）, Ucinet, VOSviewer, and so on. Results A total of 49 469 related literatures were included in the recent decade. The number of literatures continued to climb year by year. The top 15 countries （regions） accounted for 78.52% of the total number of published literatures, and China ranked 5th, but ranked 12th in terms of the proportion of high-cited papers; Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, etc. had high comprehensive influence. The number of countries （regions） that cooperated with China were 129, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The Institute of Forensic Science of Saint Mary's University, University of Sydney and Netherlands Forensic Institute had high comprehensive influence, and the related literatures were published on 6 357 journals. According to high-frequency co-occurrence network and high-cited papers, brain injury, health policy, assessment scales and models and medical imaging were selected as research hotspots. Conclusion The total number of literatures in forensic science included in international SCI increased significantly, and the influence of China's achievements needs to be greatly enhanced; the research institutions were scattered, and China's research power needs to be continuously condensed; the research hotspots in international fields are extensive, and the international participation of China in top level research needs to be strengthened.

Functional analysis of generalized linear models under non-linear constraints with applications to identifying highly-cited papers

This article introduces a versatile functional form for Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) through a simple, yet effective, transformation of the current framework. The models are applied through a new hierarchical bayesian estimation procedure for logistic regression to highly-cited papers in the Management Information Systems (MIS) field. The results are uniformly better, in regards to model fit and inference for in-sample and out-of-sample data, for simulation studies and real-world data applications, requiring very little time to convergence to true population parameters. In simulation studies, I show that the method contains the true parameters nearly three times as often as widely used existing GLMs, and does so while having confidence intervals that are 54.50% smaller, while requiring around two-thirds the number of MCMC iterations as existing bayesian methods. In Scientometric applications the methodology is shown to be highly robust with predictive/classification accuracy, either equaling or exceeding existing methods for identifying highly-cited articles including Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Thus, the method is shown to be robust to the amount of asymmetry (or symmetry) of the probability of success (or failure) and robust to unbalanced samples and varying Data Generating Processes. Further, the methodology is equivalent to current methods if the data support them and is therefore complementary to existing methods, without loss of interpretability of model parameters. For the MIS field it finds that Popularity Parameter (PP) of an article Keywords can predict whether a paper will be highly-cited (top 25% of highly-cited articles) between two to three years after publication and beyond. Furthermore, given the small number of iterations needed for convergence, the methodology can also be used as a baseline method in Big Data (BD) settings for both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) contexts as well.

Citation Impact of Outstanding Conference Papers of the IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference

Numbers of citations of outstanding conferencepapers (OCPs) of IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation EffectsConferences (NSRECs) from 1966 to 2017 are compared withcitations of the most highly cited papers (HCPs) of thecorresponding special issues of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ONNUCLEARSCIENCE(TNS), as well as average numbers ofcitations and cumulativehindex,hcum, for all TNS paperspublished in the same year. 85% of NSREC OCPs are cited ata higher rate than the average for all TNS articles in that year.55% of NSREC OCP citation totals are higher thanhcumfor TNSin that year; these rank among the~8% most highly cited TNSpapers for that year. In~10% of cases, the NSREC OCP is alsothe most HCP. Similarly high citation impact is found for papersnominated as candidates for OCPs. Radiation effects paperspublished in annual NSREC special issues comprise a significantfraction of all TNS articles citedhcumtimes or more. These resultssupport the use ofhcumas a metric of citation impact in this workand show that the NSREC OCP process generally meets awardscriteria guidelines for impact. Potential reasons for variations incitation rates are discussed, and recommendations are providedto enhance the awards process.

Highly cited papers in dental medicine based on essential science indicators

Introduction/Objective. Essential Science Indicators (ESI) Highly Cited Papers (HCPs) refer to the most influential scientific articles and breakthrough research within a research field in the past decade. This study aimed to identify the characteristics of ESI HCPs in the subject category Dentistry, Oral Surgery and Medicine, to recognize authors, institutions and countries of origin, and determine research trends that attracted the most scientific interest in dentistry. Methods. A descriptive analysis of bibliographic data, network extraction and visualization were completed. Furthermore, analyzed ESI HCPs were classified according to a field of interest, main research domain, type of study, and level of evidence. Results. The set of 185 dental HCPs was published in 42 journals from 2010 to 2020, with an average number of 211.7 citations per paper. Nearly half of HCPs were issued by the Journal of Dental Research, Dental Materials, and Journal of Clinical Periodontology. There were 765 authors affiliated with 351 institutions from 42 countries. The most productive institutions were the University of Hong Kong, the University of Michigan, and the University of Bern. The United States of America contributed with the highest number of publications, followed by China, and the United Kingdom. Dental materials, dental implantology, periodontology, and oral and maxillofacial surgery represented areas of significant interest within this subject category. The highest proportion of HCPs were narrative and systematic reviews, expert opinions, consensus reports, and in vitro ?r lab studies. Conclusion. Results obtained from this study can provide valuable information for researchers to better identify present and future hotspots in dental research.

High-Cited Papers on Covid-19 Research: A Scientometric Analysis

Aim: The paper presents a bibliometric analysisis of high-cited papers (HCPs) on Covid-19 published during 2019-2021. The study provides evidence on current research trends in the subject, identifies influential countries, organizations, research papers and journals on Covid-19 research. The study evaluates publication and citation performance of highly cited papers and maps network interactions amongst the key global players using VOSviewer software. Materials and Methods: The data for the study was sourced from Web of Science for the period 2019-2021. Results: The USA, China and the UK dominate global Covid-19 research in terms of research productivity. In terms of citation performance China leads the tally with the USA at the second position. The USA, China and the UK account for a 88% share of total HCPs in the subject. The study identified top eleven centers of excellence based on the criteria of most productivity as well as most-cited organizations. New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Science and Nature are the most favoured journals for publishing HCPs. The relationship networks of most productive countries, organizations, and keywords are also given in the paper. Key words: COVID-19, High-Cited Papers, Social network analysis, Scientometrics, Bibliometrics.

Covid-19 and Food & Nutrition: A Scientometric Assessment of Global Publications During 2020–21

The study presents a scientometric analysis of 878 globally published publications on ‘Covid-19 and Food & Nutrition’ research with the aim to understand the status of research at the global, national, institutional and individual level. The data retrieved for the study was sourced from the Scopus database covering the period from 2020–21. The study provides an insight characteristics and performance of ‘Covid-19 and Food & Nutrition’ research, using scientometric indicators to evaluate the productivity and performance of the most productive countries, organisations, authors, journals and high-cited papers. The VOS viewer and Biblioshiny were used to visually display bibliometric network of countries, organisations, authors, high-cited papers, journals and keywords respectively. The USA tops as the most productive country in the subject. The study also provides a window to key institutions and authors in ‘Covid-19 and Food & Nutrition’. Nutrients and Clinical Nutrition ESPEN were observed to be most productive journals. The results from this study may provide valuable information for researchers and policymakers to identify present and future hotspots in ‘Covid-19 and Food & Nutrition’ research.

The relationship between highly-cited papers and the frequency of citations to other papers within-issue among three top information science journals

This study investigates a potential relationship between highly-cited scholarly papers and the number of citations received by other papers with which they share a journal issue. Citations received by 3675 articles across 484 issues published in three top information science journals are analyzed based on the condition of whether an article was published in an issue that includes a “highly-cited” paper (two standard deviations above mean number by year). The findings indicate a statistically significant effect of highly-cited papers and citations to other papers in the same journal issue. This finding is relevant to authors and publishers when considering the structure of publications with an “issue” format.

Bibliometric analysis of highly cited Chinese science and technology papers in the field of schistosomiasis, 2010-2019

Objective To analyze the features and tend of highly cited papers in the field of schistosomiasis in China during 2010-2019, and we provide reference for the research direction of schistosomiasis after transmission interruption. Methods Academic articles published in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) during 2010-2019 were selected using Schistosomiasis, Schistosoma or Oncomelania as subject terms, which the retrieval date was 2020-06–02. Highly cited papers (HCPs) in field of schistosomiasis were screened according to PRICE, and then analyze total cites, years, journals, authors and institutions. Results A total of 9 094 articles were retrieved, the maximum cites was 187, and papers whose cites higher than 11 were considered as HCPs. A total of 257 schistosomiasis HCPs were selected, with a total cites of 6 171 and an average cites of 24. A total of 222 HCPs (86.4%) were published from 2000 to 2014, and 35 HCPs (13.6%) were published from 2015 to 2019. The 257 HCPs of schistosomiasis were mainly published in the Chinese Journal of Schistosomiasis Control (163 articles, 63.4%) and the Chinese Journal of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases (17 articles, 6.6%). The main participating institutions of schistosomiasis HCPs include the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Institute of Schistosomiasis Control, and Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Parasitic Disease Control, etc. Top 20 cited schistosomiasis papers were about annual national schistosomiasis annual epidemic notification (9 articles), prevention and control strategy (6 articles), monitoring (3 articles), goal and task(1 article) and molluscicide (1 article), which has an average cites of 104, 19 of which were published in Chinese Journal of Schistosomiasis Control. Among the top 20 schistosomiasis HCPs cited frequently, Zhou Xiaonong made major contributions. The National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control, and The Ministry of Health Disease Control Bureau were main contributing units. Conclusion The number of schistosomiasis HCPs has been declining year by year from 2010 to 2019. Articles related to annual epidemic notification, prevention and control strategies and monitor have attracted a high degree of attention and influence. 摘要：目的 分析 2010—2019 年血吸虫病领域中文高被引论文（highly cited papers, HCPs）特征及趋势，旨在为制 定传播阻断后血吸虫病科研攻关方向提供参考依据。 方法 以“血吸虫病、血吸虫或钉螺”为检索主题词，从中国知网 学术文献总库中的中国期刊全文数据库检索 2010—2019 年发表的学术论文（文章被引频次截至检索日期 2020-06- 02）。根据普莱斯公式，定义 HCPs 被引频次阈值，对筛选获得的血吸虫病 HCPs 被引频次、发表年份、载文期刊、参与作 者、研究机构等进行文献计量学分析。 结果 共检索到 9 094 篇文章，最高被引频次为 187 次，HCPs 被引频次阈值为 11 次。筛选获得 257 篇血吸虫病 HCPs，总被引频次为 6 171 次，篇均被引频次为 24 次。2000—2014 年累计发表 222 篇 HCPs（占 86.4%），2015—2019 年共发表 35 篇 HCPs（占 13.6%）。257 篇血吸虫病 HCPs 主要来源于《中国血吸虫病防治 杂志》（163 篇，63.4%）和《中国寄生虫学与寄生虫病杂志》（17 篇，6.6%）。血吸虫病 HCPs 的主要参与机构包括中国疾病 预防控制中心寄生虫病预防控制所、江苏省血吸虫病防治研究所、江西省寄生虫病防治研究所等。被引频次居前 20 位 的血吸虫病 HCPs 研究主题涵盖全国血吸虫病年度疫情通报（9 篇）、防治策略（6 篇）、监测（3 篇）、防治目标与任务（1 篇）、灭螺药（1 篇），篇均被引频次为 104 次，其中 19 篇刊载于《中国血吸虫病防治杂志》。被引频次居前 20 位的血吸虫 病 HCPs 中，周晓农做出了主要贡献，中国疾病预防控制中心寄生虫病预防控制所和卫生部疾病预防控制局是主要贡 献单位。 结论 2010—2019 年血吸虫病领域中文 HCPs 数量总体呈逐年下降趋势，年度疫情通报、防治策略和监测类 文章受关注和影响程度高。

Moringa Oleifera: A Bibliometric Analysis of India’s Publications During 1980-2019

The study examines India’s research publications on Moringa oleifera plant during 1980-2019, as indexed in Scopus database, focusing on aspects, such as growth characteristics, research quality and impact, extent of international collaborative papers, distribution by broad subjects and significant keywords, leading organizations, authors and journals and features of its high-cited papers. The study found that CFTRI - Mysore (21 papers), University of Calcutta (18 papers) and Banasthali Vidyapeeth (15 papers) were the most productive organizations and National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow (79.27 and 4.12), Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati (55.82 and 2.90) and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (40.7 and 2.12) were the most impactful organizations in terms of citation per paper and relative citation index. A. Mehta (10 papers), V. Sharma (10 papers) and D. Guha (9 papers) were the most productive authors and S.J.S. Flora (103.33 and 5.38), A. Urooj (36.50 and 1.90) and A.A. Mehta (20.5 and 1.59) were the most impactful authors in terms of citation per paper and relative citation index. International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (21 papers), Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research and Journal of Ethnopharmacology (19 papers each) were the leading journals contributing to the field. Journal of Ethnopharmacology (75.0), Phytotherapy Research (52.75) and Indian Journal of Experimental Biology (33.33) were found to be most impactful journals in terms of citation per paper. Key words: Moringa oleifera, Medicinal plant, Indian publications, Scientometrics, Bibliometrics.

Blockchain Research a Scientometric Assessment of Global Literature during 2010 to 2018

The paper analyzes global publications in blockchain research on a series of quantitative and qualitative indicators, using Scopus database. Blockchain research published a total of 4629 research publications in 9-year period during 2010-18. The publications registered a fast growth of 150.24 per cent and registered average citation impact per paper of 5.04. The paper profiles most productive countries, organisation, authors and journals on select bibliometric indicators. The top 29 highly-cited papers in this area are also analysed.

Identification of highly-cited papers using topic-model-based and bibliometric features: the consideration of keyword popularity

Abstract The number of received citations have been used as an indicator of the impact of academic publications. Developing tools to find papers that have the potential to become highly-cited has recently attracted increasing scientific attention. Topics of concern by scholars may change over time in accordance with research trends, resulting in changes in received citations. Author-defined keywords, title and abstract provide valuable information about a research article. This study performs a latent Dirichlet allocation technique to extract topics and keywords from articles; five keyword popularity (KP) features are defined as indicators of emerging trends of articles. Binary classification models are utilized to predict papers that were highly-cited or less highly-cited by a number of supervised learning techniques. We empirically compare KP features of articles with other commonly used journal-related and author-related features proposed in previous studies. The results show that, with KP features, the prediction models are more effective than those with journal and/or author features, especially in the management information system discipline.

Quantum robotics: A scientometrics assessment of global publications during 1993-2020

The study examines global research on Quantum Robotics on quantitative and qualitative metrics to understand the status of research in the subject at the global, national, institutional, and individual level. The analysis is based on 650 publications as indexed in the Scopus database for the period 1993-2020. The study provides a window to most productive countries, organizations and authors in the subject, provides a distribution of publications across broad subjects, identifies top modes of research communication, and describes the characteristics of highly-cited papers. The quantum robotics research registered a 33.92% annual average growth, received an average of 9.47 citations per paper (CPP) since publication during 1993-2020, which was 16.31 CPP in 1993-2006 and 8.53 CPP in 2007-2020. Only 12 of the 650 publications (1.85% share) have registered as highly cited papers. China and the USA lead the world ranking with a global publication share of 21.38% and 17.38% respectively during the period.

A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Scientific Publications of Universities: A Study of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences during 1992-2018

The evaluation of universities from different perspectives is important for their scientific development. Analyzing the scientific papers of a university under the bibliometric approach is one main evaluative approach. The aim of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis and visualization of papers published by Hamadan University of Medical Science (HUMS), Iran, during 1992-2018. This study used bibliometric and visualization techniques. Scopus database was used for data collection. 3753 papers were retrieved by applying Affiliation Search in Scopus advanced search section. Excel and VOSviewer software packages were used for data analysis and bibliometric indicator extraction. An increasing trend was seen in the numbers of HUMS's published papers and received citations. The highest rate of collaboration in national level was with Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Internationally, HUMS's researchers had the highest collaboration with the authors from the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, respectively. All highly-cited papers were published in high level Q1 journals. Term clustering demonstrated four main clusters: epidemiological studies, laboratory studies, pharmacological studies, and microbiological studies. The results of this study can be beneficial to the policy-makers of this university. In addition, researchers and bibliometricians can use this study as a pattern for studying and visualizing the bibliometric indicators of other universities and research institutions. © 2019, Heidar Mokhtari, Seyedeh Zahra Mirezati, Mohammad Karim Saberi, Farzaneh Fazli and Mohammad Kharabati-Neshin.

Literature Output on Wheat Research in India: A Scientometric Analysis

This study analyses the research output on Wheat research during the period of 2001-2016 and the analyses included research growth, rank, LCS, GCS. It also analysis that the characteristics of most productive institutions, authors and high-cited papers. This study was conducted using data from the Web of science database over the time period of 2001-2016.

Quantitative portrait of open access mega-journals

Nowadays, Open Access Mega-Journals (OAMJs) represent a substantial part of the scholarly communication system. The current research is conducted with the aim of providing better insights into the increasingly important OAMJ phenomenon through investigation of eight reputable titles using established bibliometric methods. Results of the study showed that eight studied OAMJs were responsible for 1.87% of the total number of publication indexed in Web of Science during 2012-2016. Despite the decline in publication count of PLOS ONE over the past couple of years, it was the biggest journal in the world till 2017, when Scientific Reports overtook PLOS ONE as the most productive journal. Over 88% of the papers published in eight selected OAMJs were cited at-least once at the point in time of analysis. The highest proportions of cited and un-cited documents were seen in Scientific Reports and SpringerPlus, respectively. With regard to the three indicators, namely share of highly-cited papers, the category normalized citation impact as well as the JIF percentile, IEEE Access had by far the best performance among eight examined OAMJs. Results of the study revealed that Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Neurosciences, Oncology and Immunology were the most commonly assigned subject categories to OAMJs’ content. The National Natural Science Foundation of China was the most important funding agency that supported the publication of around 26000 articles in eight studied OAMJs. Investigation of the geographic distribution of authors showed that the United States and China by far had the highest contribution in the content of eight studied OAMJs. There were, however, notable variations between different OAMJs.

Research and analysis of domestic highly cited papers of clinical medicine in ESI database during 2013-2017

Objective To investigate and analyze the highly cited papers of clinical medicine by Chinese authors in recent 5 years based on the ESI database, and to understand the publication condition of highly cited papers of clinical medicine in China. Methods We retrieved the domestic highly-cited papers from the ESI database from 2013 to 2017 by computer, and analyzed the regional distribution, citation frequency, research institutions, research fields, fund sources, paper types, journal distribution and subject terms. Results A total number of 487 highly cited clinical papers were included in the study. About 50% of the authors were from Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong province, which mainly distributed in major research institutes nationwide. During the year 2014 to 2016, there were about 110 highly cited papers per year. Cancer research was the main concern to scientists all over the world. Conclusions The clinical research in China is still at an unbalanced and uncoordinated level of development. Research institutions should grasp the hot spots of scientific research, increase research invest, track scientific research frontiers and expand their influence. Key words: Essential Science Indicators database; Chinese highly cited papers; Clinical medicine

Research Excellence in the Era of Online Attention: Altmetrics of South Africa’s Highly Cited Papers in Selected Research Fields

The use of highly cited papers (HCPs) to assess research excellence (RE) is widespread but the emergence of alternative metrics for assessing research impact has ignited debates on their role in measuring RE. This paper undertakes an altmetrics analysis of South Africa’s highly cited papers with a view to assessing the extent of online attention to these papers; the correlation between citation and altmetrics data and nuances in research fields, using conventional and altmetrics data. The Web of Science’s (WoS) Incites Essential Science Indicator (ESI) database was used to extract the metrics of HCPs while the online portal altmetric.com was used to obtain the altmetrics data for each HCP. The Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between citation data and altmetrics of the HCPs. The results indicate that clinical medicine posted the highest number of HCPs but was behind Space Science and Molecular Biology & Genetics in terms of citations per paper. Only six fields recorded more than 100 HCPs. Overall, South Africa’s HCPs have the highest altmetrics presence in Dimensions followed by Mendeley, Twitter, Facebook, News Outlets and Blogs. However, each research field exhibited different patterns as far as online attention of their papers is concerned. The implications of the plausibility of using altmetrics in assessing RE in South Africa are offered.