The Characteristic of 100 Top Altmetrics Articles

This paper aims to examine the effects of alternative publishing models such as open access practices which make scholarly output assessment easier from a Scientometrics point of view, precisely called Altmetrics.

Using bibliometrics and scientometrics, the characteristics of Altmetrics articles were studied regarding subject, the channel of publication, year of publishing, country, and readership in various social media were investigated. The comparison of the Altmetrics score and their citation status were also examined in the current study.

The study showed that more than half of the articles (53 articles) were in medical and health sciences. Other articles included were from fields of biology (20), Geology and Environmental Sciences (9), Social sciences (8), Research and development and Physics (2), and one in Information and Computer Science. Most articles (16) were published in Nature. Lancet published 12, the British Medical Journal 6, the Science and JAMA Magazine 5 articles respectively. The publication rates of articles were not the same in all months. The United States (46%), the United Kingdom (53%), and Canada (1%) published most of the top articles, respectively. Conclustion: Researchers in a variety of fields use a variety of tools to provide their research outcomes and deliver their scientific message in plain language to the public in various ways.