1. DESPITE THE SKEPTICISM Ana Ivkovic Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia,
Introduction
“Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, blogs or social bookmarking tools provide the possibility to construct innovative article-level or journal-level metrics to gauge impact and influence” (Gunther Eysenbach)
Lack of access to new research in medicine, has made communication between medical researchers and scholar necessary. Science need to be put on public display, posted by medical specialists and that has led to the emergence of scientific publishing in open portals and blogs. Scientific blogging has thus become a scientific source par excellence.
Questions/Objectives
Medical librarians have so many difficulties in convincing medical researchers to read science blogs. Data mining is very demanding work. Science bloggers inform us about their work and the work of other experts in the same field by pointing out similar topics. Barriers should be broken down by using new media. Internet portals, e-journals, blogs are quickly accessible. Blog Network Highlights is a good example of how to use science blogs as a media for spreading scientific news and highlights.
Science blog network & e-Science hot topics
Serbian articles in Open Access journals
Article level metric
Serbian scientists using
ResearchGate network
Methods
Writing about researchers’ achievements, about highlights in medicine, is of the utmost importance. Peer review brings criticism and has important role in science.
Contribution of peer reviews by others in new media should follow the new technologies.
Microblogging allows faster communication. Research Gate, a scientific network, has gathered scholars with the e, seek advice, upload recent publications and articles, and share new information with other colleagues. same field of interest. It allows researchers to post a clinical case, exchange new ideas throughout a disciplin
The numerous scientists move science from traditional journal into the web. Their scientific work can be found on the blogs of other researches and colleagues.
Microblogging allows faster communication. Research Gate, a scientific network, has gathered scholars within the same field of interest It allows researches to: seek advice, upload recent publications and articles, and share new information with other colleagues, post a clinical case, exchange new ideas throughout a disciplin etc.
Scientometrics and
Impact Factor measuring
Scientometrics 2.0
The crucial factor is
the evaluation of scientific papers. The citation index or measure of the quality of researchers’ work is only determined by the number of citations in the scientific literature.
Science blogging is not measured
as well as are papers
in well-established journals with Impact Factor.
Skepticism in blogging is widespread
among medical researchers.
Discussion
Bibliometricians and scientometricians still do not focus on research on Twitter, but the number of researchers and followers, and their presence and engagement on Twitter can no longer be ignored. Twitter citations, and linking directly to the information source is faster than the
traditional route and could herald a “scientometrics 2.0” as a supplement to
traditional scientometrics.
Twitter, a social network, offers more possibilities than does communication alone. When a particular topic appears as a highlight at social network, it could be current (hot) for very long time, for days, even months. The phenomenon of visibility encourages people with the same or similar interests to feel free to share the information or to voice their own opinion, often leading to lively debate and energetic discussion. The use of Twitter by scholars is playing an ever-increasing role and many tweets are focused on science.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to our colleague William Russell-Edu for linguistic assistance.
References
McClain C. Deep See News [Internet]. What is Twitter and Why Scientists Need To Use It. Craig McClain. 2010, August. Available from
Eysenbach G. Can Tweets Predict Citations? Metrics of Social Impact Based on Twitter and Correlation with Traditional Metrics of Scientific Impact, J Med Internet Res 2011;13(4):e123) doi: /jmir.2012
Priem J, Costello KL. How and why scholars cite on Twitter. Proceedings of the Am. Soc. Info. Sci. Tech., November/December 2010, 47: (1): p. 1–4. doi:  /meet
Letierce J, Passant A, Decker S, Breslin J G. Understanding how twitter is used to spread scientific messages. Web Science Conference In: Proceedings of the WebSci10: Extending the Frontiers of Society On-Line (April 26 – 27, 2010) Raleigh, NC, USA. Available at
AGU Blogosphere [Internet] Why should scientists use Twitter? José -Viñas. Maria, July Available at [accessed ]
Weller K, Dröge E, Puschmann C. Citation analysis in Twitter: Approaches for defining and measuring information flows within tweets during scientific conferences st Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts  Available at: [accessed ]
Results
Despite the skepticism, a new generation of medical professionals has started medical blogs,
even in Serbia. Moreover, information about other researchers’ work can be found on the
blogs of colleagues. Citation in blogs is faster than that caught by traditional bibliometrics.
It bridges a gap between scholars, researches, and the audience. In addition, it helps build
relationships between colleagues. The use of social networks among scholars, especially in
the medical community is of great importance.