Can social reference management systems predict a ranking of scholarly venues?

Abstract

New scholarly venues (e.g., conferences and journals) are emerging as research fields expand. Ranking these new venues is imperative to assist researchers, librarians, and research institutions. However, rankings based on traditional citation-based metrics have limitations and are no longer the only or the best choice to determine the impact of scholarly venues. Here, we propose a venue-ranking approach based on scholarly references from academic social media sites, and we compare a number of citation-based rankings with social-based rankings. Our preliminary results show a statistically significant correlation between the two approaches in a number of general rankings, research areas, and subdisciplines. Furthermore, we found that social-based rankings favor open-access venues over venues that require a subscription. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.