Impact of Science Working Group

We research online scholarly communication and other web-based phenomena

Current projects

Client
Top 5% of Finnish research, as measured by altmetrics - https://fimpact.utu.fi/

Measuring the societal impact of open science

As citation-based research evaluation is increasingly criticized (e.g., the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA), some alternative or complementary sources of data about research impact are being investigated under the umbrella term altmetrics. The idea and potential with altmetrics is that the mentions and other indicators of visibility and awareness a research article and other research products receive on the web and in social media could tell something about the impact or influence of that research. By investigating novel online data sources for mentions of research products we are able to obtain a more nuanced understanding of where and how research has had an impact.

The idea with altmetrics is closely related to the Open Science movement, partly because altmetrics are mostly derived from open access research products. On the other hand, while the open science movement still lacks the incentives for individual researchers to adopt some of the ideology of the movement, which in turn hinders the rapid assimilation of it, altmetrics could bring some of the lacking incentives by providing novel indicators for attention, visibility and impact.

This research project will 1) develop methods to identify, track, and investigate the societal impact of Finnish research, and 2) display and visualize the current state of research in Finland using altmetric research methods and data. By developing methods and tools to investigate altmetrics in the context of Finnish research this project will result in a refined understanding of the impact of Finnish research and create incentives for researchers to adopt the open science movement.

The project is funded by the Open Science and Research Initiative (2015-2017) by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland.

Team members

Timothy D. Bowman

PhD, Postdoctoral researcher

Fereshteh Didegah

PhD, Postdoctoral researcher

Kim Holmberg

PhD, Senior researcher
kim.j.holmberg [@] utu.fi

Former team members

Sarah Bowman

Project researcher

Julia Vainio

Project researcher

Terttu Kortelainen

Associate professor
at University of Oulu

Jouni Haltta

System analyst

Research outputs

Refereed journal articles

  • Didegah, F., Bowman, T.D., & Holmberg, K. (in press). On the differences between citations and altmetrics: An investigation of factors driving altmetrics vs. citations. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.
  • Didegah, F., Gazni, A., Bowman, T.D., & Holmberg, K. (in press). Internationality in Finnish Research: An Examination of Collaborators, Citers, Tweeters, and Readers. Information Research.
  • Holmberg, K., Didegah, F., Bowman, S., Bowman, T.D. & Kortelainen, T. (2015). Measuring the societal impact of open science – Presentation of a research project. Informaatiotutkimus, vol. 34, no. 4.


Refereed conference papers

  • Didegah, F., Bowman, T.D., Bowman, S. & Hartley, J. (2016). Comparing the characteristics of highly cited titles and highly alted titles. STI conference, 14-16 September, Valencia, Spain.
  • Didegah, F., Gazni, A., Bowman, T.D., & Holmberg, K. (2016). Internationality in Finnish Research: An Examination of Collaborators, Citers, Tweeters, and Readers. CoLIS conference, 27-29 June, Uppsala, Sweden.
  • Didegah, F., Bowman, T.D., & Holmberg, K. (2016). Increasing our understanding of altmetrics: Identifying factors that are driving both citation and altmetric counts. iConference, 2016, Philadephia, USA, 20-23 March.
  • Holmberg, K. (2015). The different meanings and levels of impact of altmetrics. To be presented at the 11th WIS conference, 26.-28. November, 2015, Delhi, India.
  • Holmberg, K. (2015). Online attention of universities in Finland: Are the bigger universities bigger online too? In: Salah, A.A., Tonta, Y., Salah, A.A.A., Sugimoto, C., & Al, U. Proceedings of the 15th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, Istanbul, Turkey. Available at http://issi2015.org/en/Proceedings-of-ISSI-2015.html.
  • Holmberg, K. (2015). Classifying altmetrics by level of impact. In: Salah, A.A., Tonta, Y., Salah, A.A.A., Sugimoto, C., & Al, U. Proceedings of the 15th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, Istanbul, Turkey. Available at http://issi2015.org/en/Proceedings-of-ISSI-2015.html. [Ignite talk]

Other refereed conference panels, posters and abstracts

  • Holmberg, K., Bowman, T.D., & Didegah, F. (accepted). Altmetrics and universities' research profiles. DISC conference, 8.-10. December, 2016, Daegu, South Korea. [Extended abstract]
  • Open Access advantage? An altmetric analysis of Finnish research publications. SIG-MET, October 14, 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • The disconnection between ranking of journals by usage and price. Nordic Workshop on Bibliometrics, October 3, 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark. [Poster]
  • Holmberg, K., Bowman, T.D., & Didegah, F. (accepted). Altmetrics and research profiles for 10 universities in Finland. 3AM conference, 28.-29. September, 2016, Bukarest, Romania. [Extended abstract]
  • Didegah, F., Bowman, T.D., & Holmberg, K. (2015). The need for more sophisticated altmetric indicators: A proposal for the categorization and development of aggregate indicators. altmetrics15 workshop, 9. October, 2015, Amsterdam, Netherlands. [Extended abstract]
  • Bowman, T.D. & Didegah, F. (2015). Terms and sentiments may apply: Examining sentiments in tweets and epistemic terms in scientific abstracts. Poster presented at the GESIS Winter Symposium, Cologne, Germany, December.
  • Holmberg, K., Bowman, T.D., & Didegah, F. (2015). The meaning of impact in altmetrics. altmetrics15 workshop, 9. October, 2015, Amsterdam, Netherlands. [Extended abstract]
  • Holmberg, K., Bowman, T.D., & Didegah, F. (2015). Measuring the societal impact of open science. 2AM conference, 7.-8. October, 2015, Amsterdam, Netherlands. [Extended abstract]. Recording of the session.

Scientific books

Workshops

Presentations

  • Altmetrics - evidence of societal impact of science or just buzz?, Forskningens genomslag utanför akademin, 22.5.2017, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • Social media as a science communication too and altmetrics as an impact metric, Scientists in Social Media - What's the point? -workshop organized by the Academy of Finland, 11.5.2017, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Miten tutkimuksen laatu näkyy? -työpaja (together with Anu Nuutinen), Avoimuuden Pyöreä Pöytä, 10.5.2017, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Altmetrics - What We Know, What We Don't Know, and What We Need to Know, Bibliometriikkaseminaari, December 16, 2016, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Altmetrics - a brief introduction, ERASMUS Staff exchange. June 8, 2016, Jyväskylä, Finland.
  • Altmetrics - an introduction, a webinar organized by SYN, 24.2.2016.
  • Altmetrics - an introduction, presentation at University of Oulu, Finland, 27.1.2016.
  • Project presentation, Avoimen tieteen foorumi, 11. November, 2015, Tampere, Finland.
  • Altmetrics - an introduction, virtual keynote at a conference (website in Persian) organized at Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran, on 11. November, 2015.
  • Tutkimuksesta käytäntöön. Miten yhteiskunnallisen arvioinnin mittareita tutkitaan? Tieteessä tapahtuu -foorumi:Mitä mittaat, sitä saat? Tutkimuksen yhteiskunnallisen vaikuttavuuden arvioimisesta, 20. October, 2015, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Combining methods from bibliometrics and altmetrics to examine citation importance (Fereshteh Didegah), Bibliometriikkaseminaari, 16. October, 2015, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Measuring the societal impact of open science (Kim Holmberg), Bibliometriikkaseminaari, 16. October, 2015, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Altmetriikka ja avoimen tieteen vaikuttavuuden mittarit, ITYn kevätseminaari, 30.5.2015, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Altmetriikka - tieteellisen toiminnan vaikuttavuuden vaihtoehtoiset indikaattorit, Avoin tiede – ylikirjastonhoitaja Päivi Kytömäen juhlaseminaari, 8.5.2015, Oulu, Finland. [Slides]
  • 1st project presentation at the Ministry of Education and Culture, 5.5.2015. [Slides]