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dc.contributor.authorThelwall, Mike
dc.contributor.authorKousha, Kayvan
dc.date.accessioned2016-05-18T09:57:17Zen
dc.date.available2016-05-18T09:57:17Zen
dc.date.issued2016-06-13
dc.identifier.citationKousha, K. and Thelwall, M. (2017), Are wikipedia citations important evidence of the impact of scholarly articles and books?. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68 (3), pp 762-779. doi:10.1002/asi.23694
dc.identifier.issn2330-1635
dc.identifier.doi10.1002/asi.23694
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2436/609614
dc.descriptionThis is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley-Blackwell in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology on 13/06/2016, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23694 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.
dc.description.abstractIndividual academics and research evaluators often need to assess the value of published research. Whilst citation counts are a recognised indicator of scholarly impact, alternative data is needed to provide evidence of other types of impact, including within education and wider society. Wikipedia is a logical choice for both of these because the role of a general encyclopaedia is to be an understandable repository of facts about a diverse array of topics and hence it may cite research to support its claims. To test whether Wikipedia could provide new evidence about the impact of scholarly research, this article counted citations to 302,328 articles and 18,735 monographs in English indexed by Scopus in the period 2005 to 2012. The results show that citations from Wikipedia to articles are too rare for most research evaluation purposes, with only 5% of articles being cited in all fields. In contrast, a third of monographs have at least one citation from Wikipedia, with the most in the arts and humanities. Hence, Wikipedia citations can provide extra impact evidence for academic monographs. Nevertheless, the results may be relatively easily manipulated and so Wikipedia is not recommended for evaluations affecting stakeholder interests.
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherWiley-Blackwell
dc.relation.urlhttps://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/asi.23694
dc.subjectWikipedia
dc.subjectcitations
dc.subjectimpact of scholarly articles and books
dc.subjectevidence of the impact of scholarly articles and books
dc.titleAre Wikipedia citations important evidence of the impact of scholarly articles and books?
dc.typeJournal article
dc.identifier.journalJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
dc.date.accepted2015-11-12
rioxxterms.versionAM
dc.source.volume68
dc.source.issue3
dc.source.beginpage762
dc.source.endpage779
refterms.dateFCD2020-06-12T14:45:59Z
refterms.versionFCDAM
refterms.dateFOA2018-08-21T12:53:59Z
html.description.abstractIndividual academics and research evaluators often need to assess the value of published research. Whilst citation counts are a recognised indicator of scholarly impact, alternative data is needed to provide evidence of other types of impact, including within education and wider society. Wikipedia is a logical choice for both of these because the role of a general encyclopaedia is to be an understandable repository of facts about a diverse array of topics and hence it may cite research to support its claims. To test whether Wikipedia could provide new evidence about the impact of scholarly research, this article counted citations to 302,328 articles and 18,735 monographs in English indexed by Scopus in the period 2005 to 2012. The results show that citations from Wikipedia to articles are too rare for most research evaluation purposes, with only 5% of articles being cited in all fields. In contrast, a third of monographs have at least one citation from Wikipedia, with the most in the arts and humanities. Hence, Wikipedia citations can provide extra impact evidence for academic monographs. Nevertheless, the results may be relatively easily manipulated and so Wikipedia is not recommended for evaluations affecting stakeholder interests.


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