- Circulating newly published papers allows for more exposure and has been linked to increased citations. And there have been a number of calls for establishing a ‘Twitter factor (t factor)’ that follows the popular h-index in aiming to measure both the number and citation impact of a scientist’s publications. This is another positive for the platform — it serves as a forum for users to connect freely with the wider community.
- What is t factor?
- Twitter factor (t factor) or Twitter impact factor (TIF) combines the following information: the number of tweets (Nt) published over a certain time period and the number of re-tweets for single tweet using the formula of the h-index.
- Based on h-index TIF can be defined as: “A unit (single publication, journal, researcher, research group, etc.) has TIF t if t of its Nt tweets have at least t re-tweets each and the other (Nt-t) tweets have ≤t re-tweets each”.
- The tweets, which are considered in the calculation of the TIF, contain a link to a single publication, the publications of a researcher, the publications of a research group, etc. –depending on the level of analysis.
- Traditional scientometrics measures the impact of science based on citations of traditional, peer-reviewed sources such as journal articles, conference papers, and workshops. Anything that passes through the peer-review process is fair game for scientometric analysis.
- Non-traditional sources, on the other hand, might include anything from citations in unpublished pre-prints of journal articles to an entry in a data set. Other nontraditional citations could include mentions in government white papers, policy papers or technical reports.
- “Alternative metrics, or altmetrics, “is also the application of scientometrics and bibliometrics to non-traditional data sources, and the measuring of scientific impact from those sources.” Altmetrics might even capture downloads of an article based on a tweet of its DOI –or the mention of a scientist or scientific organization on social media.
- Many are keen to make research visible and understandable to the wider community. For many, Twitter is one-step towards this goal, because it allows non-scientists to find new research instantaneously without having to seek it out on lab or university websites. Twitter also provides a ‘way in’ for members of the public who want to contact scientists directly.
- So, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Sina Weibo, etc., mentions are an important altmetric, a way of rigorously tracking the non-scholarly attention a paper receives.
Lucas Phil
@naveed, I'm trying to understand this but doesn't get there quick. Will take more time to grasp.
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