Astrophysicists on Twitter : an in-depth analysis of tweeting and scientific publication behavior
Article [Version acceptée]
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Aslib Journal of information management ; vol. 66, no 3, p. 279-296.Éditeur·s
EmeraldRésumé·s
Purpose – This paper analyzes the tweeting behavior of 37 astrophysicists on Twitter and
compares their tweeting behavior with their publication behavior and citation impact to show
whether they tweet research-related topics or not.
Design/methodology/approach – Astrophysicists on Twitter are selected to compare their tweets
with their publications from Web of Science. Different user groups are identified based on
tweeting and publication frequency.
Findings – A moderate negative correlation (ρ=-0.390*) is found between the number of
publications and tweets per day, while retweet and citation rates do not correlate. The similarity
between tweets and abstracts is very low (cos=0.081). User groups show different tweeting
behavior such as retweeting and including hashtags, usernames and URLs.
Research limitations/implications – The study is limited in terms of the small set of
astrophysicists. Results are not necessarily representative of the entire astrophysicist community
on Twitter and they most certainly do not apply to scientists in general. Future research should
apply the methods to a larger set of researchers and other scientific disciplines.
Practical implications – To a certain extent, this study helps to understand how researchers use
Twitter. The results hint at the fact that impact on Twitter can neither be equated with nor
replace traditional research impact metrics. However, tweets and other so-called altmetrics might
be able to reflect other impact of scientists such as public outreach and science communication.
Originality/value – To the best of our knowledge, this is the first in-depth study comparing
researchers’ tweeting activity and behavior with scientific publication output in terms of quantity,
content and impact.
Autre·s localisation·s
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