
doi: 10.1002/asi.24028
handle: 2436/621518
Counts of tweets and Mendeley user libraries have been proposed as altmetric alternatives to citation counts for the impact assessment of articles. Although both have been investigated to discover whether they correlate with article citations, it is not known whether users tend to tweet or save (in Mendeley) the same kinds of articles that they cite. In response, this article compares pairs of articles that are tweeted, saved to a Mendeley library, or cited by the same user, but possibly a different user for each source. The study analyzes 1,131,318 articles published in 2012, with minimum tweeted (10), saved to Mendeley (100), and cited (10) thresholds. The results show surprisingly minor overall overlaps between the three phenomena. The importance of journals for Twitter and the presence of many bots at different levels of activity suggest that this site has little value for impact altmetrics. The moderate differences between patterns of saving and citation suggest that Mendeley can be used for some types of impact assessments, but sensitivity is needed for underlying differences.
020, citation, Mendeley, Twitter, co-citation, scientometrics, 004
020, citation, Mendeley, Twitter, co-citation, scientometrics, 004
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 19 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
