ResearchGate: Investigating Altmetric and Bibliometric Relationships for Environmental Science Researchers at Unisa

Abstract

This paper aims to establish the relationships between the altmetrics derived from the academic social networking tool ResearchGate and bibliometrics derived from the citation resources Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar to establish which academic social networking tools gives the most advantage. The investigation forms part of a longitudinal study investigating the e-visibility of the environmental science researchers at the University of South Africa during December 2014 and December 2016. The bibliometric indicators from Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar, and altmetric indicator data from ResearchGate were collected in six (6) month intervals, and analysed using SPSS to determine the Pearson’s rank correlations. The results indicated a positive correlation between the bibliometric indicators derived from Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar, and the altmetric indicators derived from the academic social networking tool ResearchGate. The results show that ResearchGate altimetric indicators influence the bibliometric indicators positively. ResearchGate therefore can be recommended for academic social networking as a strategy to influence the Environmental Science researcher’s citations positively at Unisa.