Yan, KK; Gerstein, M. 2011. The Spread of Scientific Information: Insights from the Web Usage Statistics in PLoS Article-Level Metrics. PLOS ONE 6 (5): art. no.-e19917

[Eugene Garfield]

Yan, KK; Gerstein, M. 2011. The Spread of Scientific Information: Insights from 
the Web Usage Statistics in PLoS Article-Level Metrics. PLOS ONE 6 (5): art. 
no.-e19917..

Author Full Name(s): Yan, Koon-Kiu; Gerstein, Mark
Language: English
Document Type: Article
KeyWords Plus: SCIENCE; IMPACT; CITATIONS; SYSTEM

Abstract: The presence of web-based communities is a distinctive signature of 
Web 2.0. The web-based feature means that information propagation within 
each community is highly facilitated, promoting complex collective dynamics in 
view of information exchange. In this work, we focus on a community of 
scientists and study, in particular, how the awareness of a scientific paper is 
spread. Our work is based on the web usage statistics obtained from the PLoS 
Article Level Metrics dataset compiled by PLoS. The cumulative number of 
HTML views was found to follow a long tail distribution which is reasonably well-
fitted by a lognormal one. We modeled the diffusion of information by a random 
multiplicative process, and thus extracted the rates of information spread at 
different stages after the publication of a paper. We found that the spread of 
information displays two distinct decay regimes: a rapid downfall in the first 
month after publication, and a gradual power law decay afterwards. We 
identified these two regimes with two distinct driving processes: a short-term 
behavior driven by the fame of a paper, and a long-term behavior consistent 
with citation statistics. The patterns of information spread were found to be 
remarkably similar in data from different journals, but there are intrinsic 
differences for different types of web usage (HTML views and PDF downloads 
versus XML). These similarities and differences shed light on the theoretical 
understanding of different complex systems, as well as a better design of the 
corresponding web applications that is of high potential marketing impact.

Addresses: [Yan, Koon-Kiu; Gerstein, Mark] Yale Univ, Dept Mol Biophys & 
Biochem, New Haven, CT 06520 USA; [Yan, Koon-Kiu; Gerstein, Mark] Yale 
Univ, Program Computat Biol & Bioinformat, New Haven, CT USA; [Gerstein, 
Mark] Yale Univ, Dept Comp Sci, New Haven, CT 06520 USA
Reprint Address: Yan, KK, Yale Univ, Dept Mol Biophys & Biochem, New Haven, 
CT 06520 USA.

E-mail Address: Mark.Gerstein at yale.edu
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019917
URL: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0019917