This pilot study analyzed the impact of retweeting on the frequency of scientific articles from Nature, Science, and PLoS ONE being mentioned on Twitter. When including versus excluding retweets, the top 10 most frequently tweeted articles from Nature and PLoS ONE showed high correlation in frequency rankings. For Science the correlation was lower, indicating retweets may impact frequency rankings more for that journal. The results were only for these specific journals so a larger study across more journals is needed to better understand the potential impact of retweeting on altmetrics.

1. The impact of retweeting
on altmetrics
altmetrics14
Postdoc Researcher
Department of Organization Sciences
VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands
Honorary Research Fellow
Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group
University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Adjunct Professor, Docent
Department of Information Studies
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Kim Holmberg
(e) kim.holmberg@abo.fi
(w3) http://kimholmberg.fi
@kholmber

2. RT @[…]: Stability criteria for complex
ecosystems http://t.co/Uz1zqKji.
Stability criteria for complex ecosystems
http://t.co/Uz1zqKji.

3. Do retweets skew the data or
emphasize existing trends? Would
original tweets give more
accurate information about the
visibility, awareness, and impact
of research? Should retweets be
filtered out when conducting
altmetric research?

4. This pilot study aims at contributing to this discussion by
analyzing the impact of retweeting on the frequencies
with which scientific articles from Nature, Science, and
PLoS ONE were mentioned on Twitter.

5. Top 10 Nature titles
(when including retweets)
n Top 10 Nature titles
(when excluding retweets)
n
Death of evidence 167 Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere 87
Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere 89 The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear
accident on the pale grass blue butterfly
79
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear
accident on the pale grass blue butterfly
86 Death of evidence 67
Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western
Popular Music
72 Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western
Popular Music
64
A 61-million-person experiment in social influence
and political mobilization
58 A 61-million-person experiment in social influence
and political mobilization
50
(survey, already closed) 43 The polarizing impact of science literacy and
numeracy on perceived climate change risks
36
Must try harder 39 Must try harder 32
Structure, function and diversity of the healthy
human microbiome
37 Structure, function and diversity of the healthy
human microbiome
32
The polarizing impact of science literacy and
numeracy on perceived climate change risks
37 If only ... 32
A different agenda 36 The tomato genome sequence provides insights into
fleshy fruit evolution
27
Table 1. The 10 most frequently tweeted articles in Nature,
including retweets and excluding retweets.

6. PLoS ONE (titles)
Including retweets
total: 38152
unique: 11490
Excluding retweets
total: 31788
unique: 10885
Spearman rank correlation:
0.913
(between the frequencies with which
articles were mentioned when including
and excluding retweets)

7. Nature (URLs)
Including retweets
total: 8554
unique: 2365
Excluding retweets
total: 7028
unique: 2357
Spearman rank correlation:
0.927
(between the frequencies with which
articles were mentioned when including
and excluding retweets)

8. Science (titles)
Including retweets
total: 6038
unique: 2040
Excluding retweets
total: 2756
unique: 1466
Spearman rank correlation:
0.745
(between the frequencies with which
articles were mentioned when including
and excluding retweets)

9. CONCLUSIONS
The results here can only be taken as indicative of the
situation of these specific journals. In order to gain a more
comprehensive understanding of the possible impact
retweeting may or may not have on altmetrics the analysis
should be repeated on a larger dataset with URLs to articles
in a wider selection of scientific journals.

10. Kim Holmberg
kim.holmberg@abo.fi
http://kimholmberg.fi
@kholmber
Thank you for your attention