Mendeley Reader Counts for US Computer Science Conference Papers and Journal articles

TL;DR

This study compares Mendeley reader counts and Scopus citations for US computer science conference papers and journal articles from 1996 to 2018, highlighting the strengths and limitations of each metric over time.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between citations and altmetrics for computing publications, emphasizing the temporal differences in their usefulness.

Findings

High correlation between citations and Mendeley readers across fields and years.

Mendeley readers are more timely for recent conference papers.

Citation counts are more reliable for older publications.

Abstract

Although bibliometrics are normally applied to journal articles when used to support research evaluations, conference papers are at least as important in fast-moving computing-related fields. It is therefore important to assess the relative advantages of citations and altmetrics for computing conference papers to make an informed decision about which, if any, to use. This paper compares Scopus citations with Mendeley reader counts for conference papers and journal articles that were published between 1996 and 2018 in 11 computing fields and had at least one US author. The data showed high correlations between Scopus citation counts and Mendeley reader counts in all fields and most years, but with few Mendeley readers for older conference papers and few Scopus citations for new conference papers and journal articles. The results therefore suggest that Mendeley reader counts have a substantial advantage over citation counts for recently-published conference papers due to their greater speed, but are unsuitable for older conference papers.