The Journal and Social Media

Excerpt

Neurocritical Care has social reach. It may seem that there is a breakdown of journals into articles, papers are easily traceable, and even figures are shared. This creates a metric, and next to the impact factor, altmetrics have positioned itself as a social Web-based tool that analyzes social traffic among journal readers. Altmetrics are an aggregate of multiple data sources derived mostly from news stories, tweets, Facebook pages, blog posts, and Mendeley readers. But altmetrics are currently a major source of discussion among journal editors, who may question their reliability and the alleged connection between altmetrics and citation statistics. The precision of measuring research impact with altmetrics is not known and intuitively low. In a broader sense, altmetrics measure immediacy and attention for the article as well as non-academic engagement. Hearsay suggests that authors use the altmetric scores to show a broader impact and justify grant funding. None of this is substantiated. Social media uses many traditional ways to show that provocative articles get more attention and are more likely to go viral. If altmetrics showed a strong correlation with article citation, such attention on social media cites could potentially affect the impact factor. Joining and using Twitter could potentially contribute to improvement in the impact factor. However, even if correlation is clear, cause and effect is not. The Journal recognizes the opportunity to share interesting and exceptional articles via social media. On the Journal’s Web site, you will find the altmetric score—if there is one—in the circle next to the number of citations and under the rubric “shares.” Opening up the link provides the reader with more data on sources. …