Goodreads Reviews to Assess the Wider Impacts of Books

Kousha, Kayvan; Thelwall, Mike; Abdoli, Mahshid

dc.contributor.author	Kousha, Kayvan
dc.contributor.author	Thelwall, Mike
dc.contributor.author	Abdoli, Mahshid
dc.date.accessioned	2016-08-31T15:37:56Z
dc.date.available	2016-08-31T15:37:56Z
dc.date.issued	2017-06-01
dc.identifier.citation	Kousha, K., Thelwall, M., & Abdoli, M. (2017). Goodreads reviews to assess the wider impacts of books. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68 (8), pp 2004-2016.
dc.identifier.issn	2330-1635
dc.identifier.doi	10.1002/asi.23805
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/2436/619162
dc.description	This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by John Wiley & Sons in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology on 17/07/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23805 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.
dc.description.abstract	Although peer-review and citation counts are commonly used to help assess the scholarly impact of published research, informal reader feedback might also be exploited to help assess the wider impacts of books, such as their educational or cultural value. The social website Goodreads seems to be a reasonable source for this purpose because it includes a large number of book reviews and ratings by many users inside and outside of academia. To check this, Goodreads book metrics were compared with different book-based impact indicators for 15,928 academic books across broad fields. Goodreads engagements were numerous enough in the Arts (85% of books had at least one), Humanities (80%) and Social Sciences (67%) for use as a source of impact evidence. Low and moderate correlations between Goodreads book metrics and scholarly or non-scholarly indicators suggest that reader feedback in Goodreads reflects the many purposes of books rather than a single type of impact. Although Goodreads book metrics can be manipulated they could be used guardedly by academics, authors, and publishers in evaluations.
dc.format	application/pdf
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	John Wiley & Sons
dc.relation.url	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asi.23805
dc.subject	Goodreads
dc.subject	Book impact
dc.subject	altmetrics
dc.subject	social book reviews
dc.title	Goodreads Reviews to Assess the Wider Impacts of Books
dc.type	Journal article
dc.identifier.journal	Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
dc.date.accepted	2016-08-24
rioxxterms.funder	University of Wolverhampton
rioxxterms.funder	University of Wolverhampton
rioxxterms.identifier.project	UoW310816KK
rioxxterms.version	AM
rioxxterms.licenseref.uri	https://creativecommons.org/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate	2016-09-01
dc.source.volume	68
dc.source.issue	8
dc.source.beginpage	2004
dc.source.endpage	2016
refterms.dateFCD	2018-10-19T08:43:47Z
refterms.versionFCD	AM
refterms.dateFOA	2016-09-01T00:00:00Z
html.description.abstract	Although peer-review and citation counts are commonly used to help assess the scholarly impact of published research, informal reader feedback might also be exploited to help assess the wider impacts of books, such as their educational or cultural value. The social website Goodreads seems to be a reasonable source for this purpose because it includes a large number of book reviews and ratings by many users inside and outside of academia. To check this, Goodreads book metrics were compared with different book-based impact indicators for 15,928 academic books across broad fields. Goodreads engagements were numerous enough in the Arts (85% of books had at least one), Humanities (80%) and Social Sciences (67%) for use as a source of impact evidence. Low and moderate correlations between Goodreads book metrics and scholarly or non-scholarly indicators suggest that reader feedback in Goodreads reflects the many purposes of books rather than a single type of impact. Although Goodreads book metrics can be manipulated they could be used guardedly by academics, authors, and publishers in evaluations.