A multi-dimensional analysis of usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations for journal and conference papers

TL;DR

This study investigates how usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations relate for journal and conference papers, revealing differences in their correlations and the mediating role of early readership in citation accumulation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationships among these metrics, highlighting the mediating effect of early Mendeley readership and differences between paper types.

Findings

No significant difference in distribution patterns between journal and conference papers.

Early Mendeley readership better predicts citations than early usage counts.

Conference papers rely more on direct effects of usage on citations.

Abstract

This study analyzed 16,799 journal papers and 98,773 conference papers published by IEEE Xplore in 2016 to investigate the relationships among usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations through descriptive, regression, and mediation analyses. Differences in the relationship among these metrics between journal and conference papers are also studied. Results showed that there is no significant difference between journal and conference papers in the distribution patterns and accumulation rates of the three metrics. However, the correlation coefficients of the interrelationships between the three metrics were lower in conference papers compared to journal papers. Secondly, funding, international collaboration, and open access are positively associated with all three metrics, except for the case of funding on the usage metrics of conference papers. Furthermore, early Mendeley readership is a better predictor of citations than early usage counts and performs better for journal papers. Finally, we reveal that early Mendeley readership partially mediates between early usage counts and citation counts in the journal and conference papers. The main difference is that conference papers rely more on the direct effect of early usage counts on citations. This study contributes to expanding the existing knowledge on the relationships among usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations in journal and conference papers, providing new insights into the relationship between the three metrics through mediation analysis.