What Can Altmetric.com Tell Us About Policy Citations of Research? An Analysis of Altmetric.com Data for Research Articles from the University of Sheffield

摘要

Background: There is a growing interest in using and analyzing altmetric data forudquantifying the impact of research, especially societal impact (Bornmann, 2014, Thelwalludet al., 2016, Haunschild and Bornmann, 2017). This study therefore aimed to explore theudusefulness of Altmetric.com data as a means of identifying and categorizing the policyudimpact of research articles from a single center (the University of Sheffield).udMethod: This study has only included published research articles from authors at theudUniversity of Sheffield and indexed in the Altmetric.com database. Altmetric data onudpolicy impact was sourced from Altmetric.com following a data request and includedudcitations up until February 2017. Supplementary Altmetric.com data, including newsudmedia, blogs, Mendeley saves, and Wikipedia citations, were also gathered.udResults: Altmetric.com data did enable the identification of policy documents that citedudrelevant articles. In total, 1,463 pieces of published research from authors at the Universityudof Sheffield were found to be cited by between 1 and 13 policy documents. 21 researchudarticles (1%) were listed as being cited in five or more policy documents; 21 (1%) in fourudpolicy documents; 50 (3%) in three documents; 186 (13%) in two documents; and 1,185ud(81%) in one document. Of those 1,463 outputs, 1,449 (99%) were journal articles, 13udwere books, and 1 was a book chapter (less than 1%). The time lag from the publicationudof the research to its citation in policy documents ranged from 3 months to 31 years.udAnalysis of the 92 research articles cited in three or more policy documents indicatedudthat the research topics with the greatest policy impact were medicine, dentistry, andudhealth, followed by social science and pure science. The Altmetric.com data enabled anudin-depth assessment of the 21 research articles cited in five or more policy documents.udHowever, errors of attribution and designation were found in the Altmetric.com data.udThese findings might be generalizable to other institutions similar in organizational structureudto The University of Sheffield.udConclusion: Within the limitations of the current text-mining system, Altmetric.com canudoffer important and highly accessible data on the policy impact of an organization’sudpublished research articles, but caution must be exercised when seeking to use thisuddata, especially in terms of providing evidence of policy impact.