“When You Use Social Media You Are Not Working”: Barriers for the Use of Metrics in Social Sciences

Lemke, Steffen; Mehrazar, Maryam; Mazarakis, Athanasios; Peters, Isabella

doi:10.3389/frma.2018.00039

Cited by 15 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, our study shows that many researchers are considerably more open to the use of bibliometrics and in some cases usage metrics as indicators of scientific relevance than to the use of altmetrics. These findings are in line with observations made in previous surveys and interviews that revealed a critical stance many researchers have regarding both altmetrics as relevance indicators and social media platforms as channels for scholarly communication (Aung et al, 2019; Lemke et al, 2019; Nicholas et al, 2020a). The rank order bibliometrics > usage metrics > altmetrics also coincides with findings by Miles et al (2018) about academic librarians' familiarity with different types of research impact indicators.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…We chose the specific use case of utilizing indicators for reading prioritization during literature research as our experiment's core scenario for two reasons: first, we can assume most researchers to regularly be in the situation of encountering individual articles' metrics as possible filter criteria during online literature research and thus being familiar with it. This was also evidenced by responses during our previous interviews with social scientists (Lemke et al, 2019), which showed that even researchers in very early career stages are aware of article-level metrics and sometimes use them as filters in this particular scenario. Second, in much previous literature about researchers' perceptions of indicators, an emphasis often lies on use cases surrounding their own evaluation or their choice of publication channels (see for example Abbott et al, 2010;Haddow & Hammarfelt, 2019;Hammarfelt & Haddow, 2018;Ma & Ladisch, 2016).…”

Section: Research Problemmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…For the experiment's dissemination, we relied on a subsample of the respondents from a survey among researchers we had conducted in the summer of 2018 (Lemke et al, 2019). Said survey had been sent to authors of social science‐related papers found on RePEc and Web of Science, as well as to a mailing list maintained by the ZBW—Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an own previous effort of inquiring about researchers' perceptions, knowledge, and use of various indicators, we conducted a series of group interviews and online surveys with social scientists (Lemke, Mehrazar, Mazarakis, & Peters, 2019). Our study's results revealed that even though many researchers are justifiably wary regarding metrics' reliability as indicators of scientific relevance or quality, they still are inclined to use some of them—particularly citation‐based ones—quite regularly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With this study's results, we try to expand on insights from Lemke et al (2019) on how indicators influence researchers' decisions during literature selection. By examining whether the researchers' ranking behavior in a fictitious practice situation complies with statements made in previous interviews and surveys, we aim to achieve a more truthful picture of researchers' perceptions of indicators than surveys and interviews alone could possibly provide us with.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Conjoint analysis of researchers' hidden preferences for bibliometrics, altmetrics, and usage metrics

Lemke

Mazarakis

Peters

2021

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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The amount of annually published scholarly articles is growing steadily, as is the number of indicators through which impact of publications is measured. Little is known about how the increasing variety of available metrics affects researchers' processes of selecting literature to read. We conducted ranking experiments embedded into an online survey with 247 participating researchers, most from social sciences. Participants completed series of tasks in which they were asked to rank fictitious publications regarding their expected relevance, based on their scores regarding six prototypical metrics. Through applying logistic regression, cluster analysis, and manual coding of survey answers, we obtained detailed data on how prominent metrics for research impact influence our participants in decisions about which scientific articles to read. Survey answers revealed a combination of qualitative and quantitative characteristics that researchers consult when selecting literature, while regression analysis showed that among quantitative metrics, citation counts tend to be of highest concern, followed by Journal Impact Factors. Our results suggest a comparatively favorable view of many researchers on bibliometrics and widespread skepticism toward altmetrics. The findings underline the importance of equipping researchers with solid knowledge about specific metrics' limitations, as they seem to play significant roles in researchers' everyday relevance assessments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Research Problemmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Conjoint analysis of researchers' hidden preferences for bibliometrics, altmetrics, and usage metrics

Lemke

Mazarakis

Peters

2021

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

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show abstract

Do researchers know what the h-index is? And how do they estimate its importance?

2021

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The h-index is a widely used scientometric indicator on the researcher level working with a simple combination of publication and citation counts. In this article, we pursue two goals, namely the collection of empirical data about researchers’ personal estimations of the importance of the h-index for themselves as well as for their academic disciplines, and on the researchers’ concrete knowledge on the h-index and the way of its calculation. We worked with an online survey (including a knowledge test on the calculation of the h-index), which was finished by 1081 German university professors. We distinguished between the results for all participants, and, additionally, the results by gender, generation, and field of knowledge. We found a clear binary division between the academic knowledge fields: For the sciences and medicine the h-index is important for the researchers themselves and for their disciplines, while for the humanities and social sciences, economics, and law the h-index is considerably less important. Two fifths of the professors do not know details on the h-index or wrongly deem to know what the h-index is and failed our test. The researchers’ knowledge on the h-index is much smaller in the academic branches of the humanities and the social sciences. As the h-index is important for many researchers and as not all researchers are very knowledgeable about this author-specific indicator, it seems to be necessary to make researchers more aware of scholarly metrics literacy.

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Open scholarship in Australia: A review of needs, barriers, and opportunities

Arthur¹,

Hearn

Montgomery

et al. 2021

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

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Open scholarship encompasses open access, open data, open source software, open educational resources, and all other forms of openness in the scholarly and research environment, using digital or computational techniques, or both. It can change how knowledge is created, preserved, and shared, and can better connect academics with communities they serve. Yet, the movement toward open scholarship has encountered significant challenges. This article begins by examining the history of open scholarship in Australia. It then reviews the literature to examine key barriers hampering uptake of open scholarship, with emphasis on the humanities. This involves a review of global, institutional, systemic, and financial obstacles, followed by a synthesis of how these barriers are influenced at diverse stakeholder levels: policymakers and peak bodies, publishers, senior university administrators, researchers, librarians, and platform providers. The review illustrates how universities are increasingly hard-pressed to sustain access to publicly funded research as journal, monograph, and open scholarship costs continue to rise. Those in academia voice concerns about the lack of appropriate open scholarship infrastructure and recognition for the adoption of open practices. Limited access to credible research has led, in some cases, to public misunderstanding about legitimacy in online sources. This article, therefore, represents an urgent call for more empirical research around ‘missed opportunities’ to promote open scholarship. Only by better understanding barriers and needs across the university landscape can we address current challenges to open scholarship so research can be presented in usable and understandable ways, with data made more freely available for reuse by the broader public.

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“When You Use Social Media You Are Not Working”: Barriers for the Use of Metrics in Social Sciences

Cited by 15 publications

References 29 publications

Conjoint analysis of researchers' hidden preferences for bibliometrics, altmetrics, and usage metrics

Conjoint analysis of researchers' hidden preferences for bibliometrics, altmetrics, and usage metrics

Do researchers know what the h-index is? And how do they estimate its importance?

Open scholarship in Australia: A review of needs, barriers, and opportunities

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