In recent months, I’ve noticed that my publication (Early lymphocyte levels ..., https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2024.1426635) has generated a significant number of views and downloads, prompting me to reflect on how such interest might influence future citations. I understand that the number of citations often depends on various factors, such as the relevance of the topic or the visibility of the study in relevant channels. In your experience, can a high number of views and downloads shortly after publication actually lead to a higher number of future citations? Or are there other variables that play a more substantial role in driving a publication’s citation rate?
I would be interested to hear your experiences and insights regarding the relationship between audience interest and the subsequent impact of a scientific work.
What can be said with decent certainty is that open access has an impact advantage over science behind paywalls. View numbers are substantially higher resulting in higher citation numbers:
https://www.science.org/content/article/open-access-papers-draw-more-citations-broader-readership
Going beyond that, the plain number of views is not necessarily a guarantee that it will be cited at all:
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-have-a-lot-of-views-of-your-research-articles-but-virtually-zero-citations
Thus, establishing a causality there probably would require shady argumentations.
Jürgen Weippert In my opinion, the most valuable metric is the ratio of downloads to views, as it combines the visibility of the publication with genuine interest in its content. Nevertheless, it is probably difficult to translate this into a specific prediction.
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