Schloegl, C; Gorraiz, J. 2011. Global Usage Versus Global Citation Metrics: The Case of Pharmacology Journals. JASIST. 62 (1): 161-170..

[Eugene Garfield]

Schloegl, C; Gorraiz, J. 2011. Global Usage Versus Global Citation Metrics: The 
Case of Pharmacology Journals. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR 
INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 62 (1): 161-170..

Author Full Name(s): Schloegl, Christian; Gorraiz, Juan
Language: English
Document Type: Article

KeyWords Plus: IMPACT; STATISTICS; DOWNLOADS

Abstract: Following the transition from print journals to electronic (hybrid) 
journals in the past decade, usage metrics have become an interesting 
complement to citation metrics. In this article we investigate the similarities of 
and differences between usage and citation indicators for pharmacy and 
pharmacology journals and relate the results to a previous study on oncology 
journals. For the comparison at journal level we use the classical citation 
indicators as defined in the Journal Citation Reports and compute the 
corresponding usage indicators. At the article level we not only relate download 
and citation counts to each other but also try to identify the possible effect of 
citations upon subsequent downloads. Usage data were provided by 
ScienceDirect both at the journal level and, for a few selected journals, on a 
paper-by-paper basis. The corresponding citation data were retrieved from the 
Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports. Our analyses show that electronic 
journals have become generally accepted over the last decade. While the 
supply of ScienceDirect pharma journals rose by 50% between 2001 and 2006, 
the total number of article downloads (full-text articles [FTAs]) multiplied more 
than 5-fold in the same period. This also impacted the pattern of scholarly 
communication (strong increase in the immediacy index) in the past few years. 
Our results further reveal a close relation between citation and download 
frequencies. We computed a high correlation at the journal level when using 
absolute values and a moderate to high correlation when relating usage and 
citation impact factors. At the article level the rank correlation between 
downloads and citations was only medium-sized. Differences between 
downloads and citations exist in terms of obsolescence characteristics. While 
more than half of the articles are downloaded in the publication year or 1 year 
later, the median cited half-life was nearly 6 years for our journal sample. Our 
attempt to reveal a direct influence of citations upon downloads proved not to 
be feasible.

Addresses: [Schloegl, Christian] Graz Univ, Inst Informat Sci & Informat Syst, 
A-8010 Graz, Austria; [Gorraiz, Juan] Univ Vienna, Bibliometr Dept, Lib Serv, A-
1090 Vienna, Austria; [Gorraiz, Juan] Univ Vienna, Bibliometr Dept, Arch Serv, 
A-1090 Vienna, Austria

Reprint Address: Schloegl, C, Graz Univ, Inst Informat Sci & Informat Syst, Univ 
Str 15-F3, A-8010 Graz, Austria.
E-mail Address: christian.schloegl at uni-graz.at; juan.gorraiz at univie.ac.at
ISSN: 1532-2882
DOI: 10.1002/asi.21420
fulltext: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21420/full