Page 176 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

YU Houqiang，Bradley M. Hemminger，XIAO Tingting & QIU Junping / Features of Sina Weibo altmetrics indicator 175

has been conducted in the same size with our research, empirical studies based on different
samples all showed that Twitter altmetrics coverage was above 20% (Hammarfelt, 2014; Haustein,
Bowman, Macaluso, Sugimoto, & Larivire, 2015). However, Altmetric.com didn’t collect Weibo
data until December 2014, although they traced data back to October 2011, the completeness
cannot be guaranteed. What’s more, the data collection was restricted to international mainstream
publishing groups and academic platforms, Chinese articles of Chinese major publishers were
not tracked. As the prevailing Chinese microblog service, it’s reasonable conjecture that Weibo
mention and discuss more Chinese scholarly articles than articles in foreign publishers and
platforms. So the coverage calculated here only provide reference and may infer the bigger
landscape.
(2) Weiboed articles have disciplinary difference and journal difference, and rich motivations
as well. Top Weiboed articles were from disciplines like “General”, “Biochemistry, Genetics and
Molecular Biology”, “Health sciences”, “Medicine” and “Life Sciences”. To be more specific, top
Weiboed articles were from “Cell biology”, “Molecular biology“, “Genetics”, “Clinical Sciences”,
“Oncology”, “Neurosciences”, “Allergy and immunology”, “Cognitive Science”, “Psychology”,
“Economics” and Political Science”. A small number of journals had outstanding performance in
Weibo altmetrics indicator, in addition to traditional distinguished interdisciplinary journals like
Nature, Science and Cell, preprint and open access platforms like arXiv, PLoS ONE and SSRN
were also highly Weiboed. Journals like Molecular Cell, Nature Biotechnology and CellStem Cell
etc. in biology sciences, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Science
Translational Medicine, Neuron and The Lancet etc. in medical sciences, and Psychological
Science in psychology were major sources of Weiboed articles.
Case studies of Weiboed articles and Weibo content showed, motivations of Weiboing include:
First, disseminate research results, because they are interesting, adhering to daily life and
revolutionize coherent cognition; Second, disseminate research results, attempt to recommend for
usage and reference, because the articles provide a new tool or operation methods; Third, review
and comment on research results, propose criticism or recognition, because the articles may
mislead or have implications to the public. These mentions and discussions by Weibo all convey
social value and scholarly value beyond citations. Studies of Twitter altmetrics also highlighted
that articles of humor and entertainment, as well as those related to health science, would obtain
more attention (Haustein, Bowman,Holmberg, Peters, & Larivière, 2014).
(3) Weibo discussed mainly latest articles, but also mentioned classic articles, and articles
published in January harvested comparably more Weibos. The percentage of articles that got
Weiboed in less than 1 day after publishing reached 22.64%, and the percentage was 68.66% in
less than 180 days. 6.9% of the scholarly articles got weiboed even before formal publishing,
which demonstrated well the timeliness of Weibo altmetrics indicator. Meanwhile, there were
26.5% of the scholarly articles receiving no Weibo until more than 360 days later. Case studies
of these Weibo delayed articles showed that these articles were classic and historical literature in