A comparative study of the impact of Korean research articles in four academic fields using altmetrics

Abstract

Purpose Alternative metrics (altmetrics) are non-traditional metrics to measure the social impact of research results, which were unable to be assessed by the previous methods, by calculating how research results are reflected in various social media. The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the impact of Korean study results in four fields that were published in international journals using altmetrics. Design/methodology/approach This study analysed the impact of 383 Korean research articles published by international journals in the field of medical science, engineering, social science and arts and humanities through altmetrics and compared it with bibliometrics. Findings As a result, the frequency of research articles which are “discussed” through social media such as Twitter was shown to be highest in the medical science than in other fields. In addition, the frequency of research articles which were “saved” through reference management tool such as Mendeley was shown to be higher in the social science and the arts and humanities than in other fields. Furthermore, as a result of a correlation analysis between altmetrics and bibliometrics, it is found that there exists a positive correlation between the number of articles which were “saved” in Mendeley and “cited” in follow-up studies. Originality/value This study examined the impact of the articles originating in non-English-speaking nations; it could be referred by other non-English-speaking nations that are trying to identify invisible impact of their research output on global society. By finding the academic field which are receiving special attention from global community using altmetrics, researchers could prospect country’s overall research impact and utilize it to make a future R&D plan.

Pengaruh Media Sosial Terhadap Sitasi Publikasi Internasional Karya Ilmiah Indonesia Bidang Pertanian Dengan Pendekatan Altmetrics

“…Jurnal atau majalah ilmiah merupakan publikasi penelitian yang sering disitir untuk memperkuat penelitian-penelitian baru. Publikasi jurnal secara historis merupakan sarana utama komunikasi bagi sivititas akademika (Cho, 2017). Berdasarkan data Badan Pusat Statistik (2009), jumlah petani sekitar 46,7 juta (44%) dari total angkatan kerja di Indonesia (Ambarita & Kartika, 2015).…”

“…Jurnal selain sebagai media komunikasi bagi sivitas akedemika juga sebagai impact factor (pengukuran) dampak atau h-index berdasarkan bibliometrik-sebagai indikator utama dalam penghitungan dampak publikasi jurnal. Beberapa dekade ini, beberapa peneliti telah menggunakan media sosial seperti blogs, twitter ataupun facebook tidak hanya untuk diskusi dan merekomendasikan isu-isu terkini tetapi juga menggali dan mengeksplorasi ide-ide serta mengumpulkan informasi penelitian (Cho, 2017).…”

“…Merujuk penelitian Cho (2017) tentang "a comparative study of the impact of korean research articles in four academicfields using altmetrics" dan Xia et al 2016tentang "bibliographic analysis of nature based on Twitter and Facebook altmetrics data", penelitian ini berbeda dengan dua penelitian tersebut, di mana penelitian ini mengkhususkan pada karya ilmiah bidang pertanian dan media sosialnya tidak terbatas hanya pada Facebook dan Twitter.…”

How Much Research Output from India Gets Social Media Attention?

“…A study focused on evaluating research work from Taiwan using 18 different online media-based indicators 20 . Cho 21 performed a study on articles from South Korea and found that Mendeley had more correlation with traditional impact than other social media platforms. Holmberg and Woo 22 studied the online platform visibility for scientific journals from South Korea.…”

Do Mendeley reader counts indicate the value of arts and humanities research?

“…This is supported by two focused investigations. Few humanities journal articles are mentioned in other social web sources, at least in Sweden (Hammarfelt, 2014), and Korean arts and humanities research is better covered by Mendeley than other subject areas (Cho, 2017).…”