IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v126y2021i2d10.1007_s11192-020-03809-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using altmetrics for detecting impactful research in quasi-zero-day time-windows: the case of COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Erik Boetto

    (University of Bologna)

  • Maria Pia Fantini

    (University of Bologna)

  • Aldo Gangemi

    (ISTC-CNR
    University of Bologna)

  • Davide Golinelli

    (University of Bologna)

  • Manfredi Greco

    (University of Bologna)

  • Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese

    (ISTC-CNR)

  • Valentina Presutti

    (University of Bologna)

  • Flavia Rallo

    (University of Bologna)

Abstract

On December 31st 2019, the World Health Organization China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City. The cause of the syndrome was a new type of coronavirus isolated on January 7th 2020 and named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since January 2020 an ever increasing number of scientific works related to the new pathogen have appeared in literature. Identifying relevant research outcomes at very early stages is challenging. In this work we use COVID-19 as a use-case for investigating: (1) which tools and frameworks are mostly used for early scholarly communication; (2) to what extent altmetrics can be used to identify potential impactful research in tight (i.e. quasi-zero-day) time-windows. A literature review with rigorous eligibility criteria is performed for gathering a sample composed of scientific papers about SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 appeared in literature in the tight time-window ranging from January 15th 2020 to February 24th 2020. This sample is used for building a knowledge graph that represents the knowledge about papers and indicators formally. This knowledge graph feeds a data analysis process which is applied for experimenting with altmetrics as impact indicators. We find moderate correlation among traditional citation count, citations on social media, and mentions on news and blogs. Additionally, correlation coefficients are not inflated by indicators associated with zero values, which are quite common at very early stages after an article has been published. This suggests there is a common intended meaning of the citational acts associated with aforementioned indicators. Then, we define a method, i.e. the Comprehensive Impact Score (CIS), that harmonises different indicators for providing a multi-dimensional impact indicator. CIS shows promising results as a tool for selecting relevant papers even in a tight time-window. Our results foster the development of automated frameworks aimed at helping the scientific community in identifying relevant work even in case of limited literature and observation time.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik Boetto & Maria Pia Fantini & Aldo Gangemi & Davide Golinelli & Manfredi Greco & Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Valentina Presutti & Flavia Rallo, 2021. "Using altmetrics for detecting impactful research in quasi-zero-day time-windows: the case of COVID-19," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1189-1215, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03809-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03809-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03809-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-020-03809-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Silvio Peroni & Paolo Ciancarini & Aldo Gangemi & Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Francesco Poggi & Valentina Presutti, 2020. "The practice of self-citations: a longitudinal study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 253-282, April.
    2. Lutz Bornmann & Robin Haunschild, 2018. "Do altmetrics correlate with the quality of papers? A large-scale empirical study based on F1000Prime data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-12, May.
    3. Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Paolo Ciancarini & Aldo Gangemi & Silvio Peroni & Francesco Poggi & Valentina Presutti, 2019. "Do altmetrics work for assessing research quality?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 539-562, February.
    4. Xuemei Li & Mike Thelwall & Dean Giustini, 2012. "Validating online reference managers for scholarly impact measurement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 461-471, May.
    5. Pardeep Sud & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "Evaluating altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1131-1143, February.
    6. Mike Thelwall, 2018. "Early Mendeley readers correlate with later citation counts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1231-1240, June.
    7. Lutz Bornmann, 2015. "Alternative metrics in scientometrics: a meta-analysis of research into three altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1123-1144, June.
    8. Sune Lehmann & Andrew D. Jackson & Benny E. Lautrup, 2008. "A quantitative analysis of indicators of scientific performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(2), pages 369-390, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    2. Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Paolo Ciancarini & Aldo Gangemi & Silvio Peroni & Francesco Poggi & Valentina Presutti, 2019. "Do altmetrics work for assessing research quality?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 539-562, February.
    3. Ying Guo & Xiantao Xiao, 2022. "Author-level altmetrics for the evaluation of Chinese scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 973-990, February.
    4. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang & Yang Zhang, 2023. "The effect of social media knowledge cascade: an analysis of scientific papers diffusion," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5169-5195, September.
    5. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    6. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "The alleged citation advantage of video abstracts may be a matter of self-citations and self-selection bias. Comment on “The impact of video abstract on citation counts” by Zong et al," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 751-757, January.
    7. Jyoti Paswan & Vivek Kumar Singh & Mousumi Karmakar & Prashasti Singh, 2022. "Does university–industry–government collaboration in research gets higher citation and altmetric impact? A case study from India," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6063-6082, November.
    8. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang & Chaomei Chen, 2020. "Measuring researchers’ potential scholarly impact with structural variations: Four types of researchers in information science (1979–2018)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-26, June.
    9. Yu Liu & Dan Lin & Xiujuan Xu & Shimin Shan & Quan Z. Sheng, 2018. "Multi-views on Nature Index of Chinese academic institutions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 823-837, March.
    10. Maria Cristiana Martini & Elvira Pelle & Francesco Poggi & Andrea Sciandra, 2022. "The role of citation networks to explain academic promotions: an empirical analysis of the Italian national scientific qualification," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5633-5659, October.
    11. Mingyang Wang & Zhenyu Wang & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Which can better predict the future success of articles? Bibliometric indices or alternative metrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1575-1595, June.
    12. Haunschild, Robin & Bornmann, Lutz, 2023. "Which papers cited which tweets? An exploratory analysis based on Scopus data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    13. Bhaskar Mukherjee & Siniša Subotić & Ajay Kumar Chaubey, 2018. "And now for something completely different: the congruence of the Altmetric Attention Score’s structure between different article groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 253-275, January.
    14. Cristina López-Duarte & Marta M. Vidal-Suárez & Belén González-Díaz, 2019. "Cross-national distance and international business: an analysis of the most influential recent models," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 173-208, October.
    15. S. Ravikumar & Bidyut Bikash Boruah & M. N. Ravikumar, 2022. "Correlation study between citation count and Mendeley readership of the articles of Sri Lankan authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4873-4885, August.
    16. Jianhua Hou & Hao Li & Yang Zhang, 2023. "Altmetrics-based sleeping beauties: necessity or just a supplement?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5477-5506, October.
    17. Latefa Ali Dardas & Malik Sallam & Amanda Woodward & Nadia Sweis & Narjes Sweis & Faleh A. Sawair, 2023. "Evaluating Research Impact Based on Semantic Scholar Highly Influential Citations, Total Citations, and Altmetric Attention Scores: The Quest for Refined Measures Remains Illusive," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    18. Maryam Moshtagh & Tahereh Jowkar & Maryam Yaghtin & Hajar Sotudeh, 2023. "The moderating effect of altmetrics on the correlations between single and multi-faceted university ranking systems: the case of THE and QS vs. Nature Index and Leiden," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 761-781, January.
    19. Hajar Sotudeh & Zahra Mazarei & Mahdieh Mirzabeigi, 2015. "CiteULike bookmarks are correlated to citations at journal and author levels in library and information science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2237-2248, December.
    20. Tahamtan, Iman & Bornmann, Lutz, 2018. "Creativity in science and the link to cited references: Is the creative potential of papers reflected in their cited references?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 906-930.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03809-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.