Alternative metrics of Information Sciencejournals

ABSTRACT

Currently, the Altmetrics has been topicof interest in studies on scientific communication that has pointed to this quantitative approach as a significant way for mapping scientific production circulating in the social web. In this scope, this research has as objective to analyze the altmetric indicators of the Information Science journals with Qualis A1 (Capes), aiming at raising the variables: sources of information whose articles had more attention on-line; newspapers that had most articles that impact on social networks; periodicals that have altmetric tools incorporated into the institutional site; newspapers that have social media profiles. From the methodological point of view, it is characterized as a quantitative and qualitative research, of the exploratory type that seeks to make a comparative analysis from altmetric indicators extracted through the tool Altmetric.com. The results indicate that most publications have mentions in on-line sources. Note that the level of on-line attention is higher for newer articles. As already seen in other altmetric studies, Mendeley and Twitter are the main social networks for circulating search results. There is a significant number of references to articles in news, which indicates that specifically in the area of Information Science, altmetric indicators may contribute to studies related to scientific dissemination in the area. It wasobserved that most of the mentioned journals are not of interest specific to Information Science, as well as that most of the journals have profiles in social networks. It is concluded that there is a favorable context for the use of altmetric indicators as a complementary resource in the evaluation of scientific production, both as a contribution in studies of scientific communication and in studies on scientific dissemination.

Keywords:
Altmetria; On-line attention; Scientific periodicals; Information Science