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Reliability and accuracy of altmetric providers: a comparison among Altmetric.com, PlumX and Crossref Event Data

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  • José Luis Ortega

    (Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC))

Abstract

The aim of this study is to measure differences between three relevant altmetric providers: Altmetric.com, PlumX and Crossref Event Data (CED). More than 67,000 research papers, initially extracted from PlumX, were searched in Altmetric.com and CED to compare their counts. Differences between services were analyzed regarding the number of documents with an altmetric event and the counting differences in each metric. Results show that Altmetric.com is the provider with the best coverage of blog posts, news and tweets; while PlumX better collects Mendeley readers; and CED is the site that extracts more Wikipedia citations. The study concludes that there are important counting differences due to technical errors and extracting criteria. The article recommends the use of specific services for the analysis of particular metrics. While, it should be mandatory to employ the combination of several providers, if we want to perform an overall analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • José Luis Ortega, 2018. "Reliability and accuracy of altmetric providers: a comparison among Altmetric.com, PlumX and Crossref Event Data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2123-2138, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:116:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2838-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2838-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. José Luis Ortega, 2016. "To be or not to be on Twitter, and its relationship with the tweeting and citation of research papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1353-1364, November.
    2. Isabella Peters & Peter Kraker & Elisabeth Lex & Christian Gumpenberger & Juan Gorraiz, 2016. "Research data explored: an extended analysis of citations and altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 723-744, May.
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    5. Christine Meschede & Tobias Siebenlist, 2018. "Cross-metric compatability and inconsistencies of altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 283-297, April.
    6. Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Sam Work & Vincent Larivière & Stefanie Haustein, 2017. "Scholarly use of social media and altmetrics: A review of the literature," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(9), pages 2037-2062, September.
    7. Mojisola Erdt & Aarthy Nagarajan & Sei-Ching Joanna Sin & Yin-Leng Theng, 2016. "Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1117-1166, November.
    8. Rodrigo Costas & Zohreh Zahedi & Paul Wouters, 2015. "Do “altmetrics” correlate with citations? Extensive comparison of altmetric indicators with citations from a multidisciplinary perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(10), pages 2003-2019, October.
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    6. David Andrés Camargo Mayorga, 2021. "Acerca de las altmetrics," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, vol. 29(1), pages 7-9, March.
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