Do you cite what you tweet? Investigating the relationship between tweeting and citing research articles
Abstract
The last decade of altmetrics research has demonstrated that altmetrics have a low to moderate correlation with citations, depending on the platform and the discipline, among other factors. Most past studies used academic works as their unit of analysis to determine whether the attention they received on Twitter was a good predictor of academic engagement. Our work revisits the relationship between tweets and citations where the tweet itself is the unit of analysis, and the question is to determine if, at the individual level, the act of tweeting an academic work can shed light on the likelihood of the act of citing that same work. We model this relationship by considering the research activity of the tweeter and its relationship to the tweeted work. Results show that tweeters are more likely to cite works affiliated with their same institution, works published in journals in which they also have published, and works in which they hold authorship. It finds that the older the academic age of a tweeter the less likely they are to cite what they tweet, though there is a positive relationship between citations and the number of works they have published and references they have accumulated over time.
Geoff Krause
ID PhD Program, Dalhousie University
Keith MacKnight
School of Information Management Dalhousie University
I am a first-year student in Dalhousie University’s Master of Information program. My academic background is in Archaeology and History, but I have moved to the Information Management field after spending two years working for my local archives and enjoying my time there. Through the Master of Information program, I hope to learn the skills to advance further in the field of archives, while also exploring the other opportunities available to me in Information Management.
Rodrigo Costas
Senior Researcher, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS)
