I don't think that these metrics should be used as a strict metric of quality, but I don't think they can be dismissed either. The same media that report on pop culture phenomena are also now used to report news from the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR. Many people now use Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc as their primary news source. If a Nature story makes it into somebody's newsfeed and is actually read, I think that's a victory for scientific literacy and public awareness of science. Aside from communication with the general public, articles that were mentioned frequently on Twitter were 11 times more likely to be cited than less frequently mentioned articles (Eysenback 2011). While these metrics should not be used as a proxy for the quality of a paper, they are likely a good proxy for the "broader impact" of a paper.
Casey --- Casey terHorst Assistant Professor Department of Biology California State University, Northridge 18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge, CA 91330-8303 Office Phone: (818) 677-3352 [email protected] http://www.ecoevolab.com On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 5:49 PM, David Duffy <[email protected]> wrote: > While perusing an abstract in "Nature this week" , > > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nature.com_nature_journal_v520_n7547_full_520266d.html-3FWT.ec-5Fid-3DNATURE-2D20150416&d=AwIFaQ&c=Oo8bPJf7k7r_cPTz1JF7vEiFxvFRfQtp-j14fFwh71U&r=pLB0OGe38hM4pJZZFglWpQz-fLkc9E0r1Osik9lzZgY&m=bJdzNbfCLo89y35bYSXP8vE9jX3Vvu4mxHVJq8DZJ_E&s=SDVOoPmfoKEhFLnVLiFFuu6aM63z9OOjP66G12u6s4M&e= > > I found a button to click called "Article Metrics". Once clicked, I found > it had three different metrics: 1. citations (zero as the article is brand > new, but likely to be frequent in the future), an alimetric score > apparently based on 9 tweets and one reddit, and a map of Twitter > "demographics" (n = 5). The alimetric score " is calculated based on two > main sources of online attention: social media and mainstream news media". > > Citations have their problems as a growing literature documents, but > turning over judgement of quality to Twitter and Reddit suggests Nature is > pandering to the standards society uses to judge the Kardasians, Miley > Cyrus and Prince Harry in Las Vegas. > > And we want Congress and the public to take science seriously? > > David Duffy > > -- > David Duffy > 戴大偉 (Dài Dàwěi) > Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit > Botany > University of Hawaii > 3190 Maile Way > Honolulu Hawaii 96822 USA > 1-808-956-8218 >
