Altmetrics of Highly Cited Research Papers in Social Science

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the altmetrics of academic papers highly cited in the social sciences and to assess whether the altmetrics show any correlation with the citations and open access status. To accomplish this goal, 638 highly cited articles from SCOPUS were extracted and PlumX metrics were used to measure the altmetrics (views, readers, blogs, Wikis, and Tweets). Then, the relationship among altmetrics, citation rates, and open access status was analyzed through Spearman correlation analysis and the Mann–Whitney test. In addition, with corresponding analysis, this study identified and visualized the differences in altmetrics between 10 social science sub-disciplines. As a result, the papers in the social sciences have greater than one altmetrics presence in greater than 30% of all altmetrics sources. In detail, greater than 90% of the papers had one or more readers in Mendeley, and 50% of the papers had one or more references in Wiki. There was also a strong correlation between the numbers of citations and readers, and open access papers showed a higher altmetrics presence than those that were closed. In terms of differences between disciplines, many psychology articles were registered as a reference on Wiki; many articles in the fields of humanity, society, and politics were drawn to popular discussions through Tweets; and the education field had the highest number of Mendeley readers. This study traced the social influence of highly cited papers in the social sciences that had not been understood before and then statistically interpreted the differences in social impact among the 10 social science disciplines.