| Item Type |
Journal paper
|
| Abstract |
Social media are becoming increasingly popular in scientific communication. A range of platforms, such as academic social networking sites (SNS), are geared specifically towards the academic community. Proponents of the altmetrics approach have pointed out that new media allow for new avenues of scientific impact assessment. Traditional impact measures based on bibliographic analysis have long been criticized for overlooking the relational dynamics of scientific impact. We therefore propose an application of social network analysis to researchers' interactions on an academic social networking site to generate potential new metrics of scientific impact. Based on a case study conducted among a sample of Swiss management scholars, we analyze how centrality measures derived from the participants' interactions on the academic SNS ResearchGate relate to traditional, offline impact indicators. We find that platform engagement, seniority, and publication impact contribute to members' indegree and eigenvector centrality on the platform, but less so to closeness or betweenness centrality. We conclude that a relational approach based on social network analyses of academic SNS, while subject to platform-specific dynamics, may add richness and differentiation to scientific impact assessment. |
| Authors |
Hoffmann, Christian Pieter; Lutz, Christoph & Meckel, Miriam |
| Journal or Publication Title |
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) |
| Language |
English |
| Keywords |
evaluation, scientists, social network analysis |
| Subjects |
social sciences |
| HSG Classification |
contribution to scientific community |
| HSG Profile Area |
SoM - Business Innovation |
| Refereed |
Yes |
| Date |
27 April 2015 |
| Publisher |
Wiley |
| Place of Publication |
Hoboken, NJ |
| Volume |
67 |
| Number |
4 |
| Page Range |
765-775 |
| Number of Pages |
11 |
| ISSN |
2330-1635 |
| ISSN-Digital |
2330-1643 |
| Publisher DOI |
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23423 |
| Official URL |
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.234... |
| Depositing User |
Christoph Lutz
|
| Date Deposited |
27 Apr 2015 18:34 |
| Last Modified |
20 Jul 2022 17:24 |
| URI: |
https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/publications/240735 |
A relational altmetric? Network centrality on ResearchGate as an indicator of scientific impact
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