Unpublished Paper
Using Downloads and Citations to Evaluate Journals
(2017)
Abstract
Download rates of academic journals have joined citation rates as commonly used
measures of research influence. But in what ways and to what extent do the two
measures differ? This paper examines six years of download data for more than ve
thousand journals subscribed to by the University of California system. While download
rates of journals are highly correlated with citation rates, the average ratio of
downloads to citations varies substantially among academic disciplines. We find that,
typically, the ratio of a journal's downloads to citations depends positively on its impact
factor. Surprisingly, we find that, controlling for citation rates, number of articles,
academic discipline and year of download, there remains a publisher effect. with some
publishers recording significantly more downloads than would be predicted from characteristics
of their journals. Download statistics are recorded and supplied to libraries
by journal publishers, often subject to confidentiality clauses. If libraries use download
statistics to evaluate journals, they may want to account for publisher bias in these
statistics.
Disciplines
Publication Date
December 6, 2017
Citation Information
Alex Wood-Doughty, Ted C Bergstrom and Douglas G Steigerwald. "Using Downloads and Citations to Evaluate Journals" (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ted_bergstrom/131/