Measuring Societal Impact: An Altmetrics Analysis of SDG Research in Sustainability Journal
No Thumbnail Available
Files
Date
2025-12-08
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
INFLIBNET Centre Gandhinagar
Abstract
Scholarly interest in social media has increased, prompting researchers to incorporate these
platforms into their studies. The study utilises altmetric analysis to determine whether the
Altmetric Attention Score is a good representative for citation counts and whether it can
accurately complement traditional research metrics. The study consists of 4,859 documents
published in 2018 in the journal Sustainability, and only about one-fifth of the articles had an
AAS greater than 1. The mean AAS was 2, while the median AAS stood at 0. Regarding
citations, the average number was 23.44 (95% CI: 22.55-24.32), whereas the average AAS
was 2.08 (95% CI: 1.9-2.4) for documents published in 2018. Spearman correlation analysis
was utilised to evaluate the relationship between altmetrics and citation counts using SPSS
software. The findings revealed a weak positive correlation (r = 0.20) between AAS and the
number of citations. Significant interactions were noted on Twitter, where AAS demonstrated
a strong positive correlation (r = 0.74). Furthermore, AAS and policy-related sources showed
a positive correlation (r = 0.42). The analysis revealed a weak correlation among online
sources and a negative correlation with blogs and patents. However, it showed a moderate
correlation with policy sources, indicating that AAS may help predict the influence of research
related to the Sustainable Development Goals. The impact of social media on engagement
with sustainability journals is limited due to mixed responses from scholars and low public
awareness of SDG research
Description
14th International CALIBER 2025, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, November 17-19, 2025
Keywords
Altmetric Attention Score, Citation Impact, Research Evaluation, Scholarly Communication, Science Communication, Social Media Metrics, Sustainability Journal, Sustainable Development Goals