Usage pattern analysis of academic articles from Chinese journals

Yuxin Liu; Shiqin Wang

doi:10.54097/hset.v23i.3615

Authors

Yuxin Liu
Shiqin Wang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/hset.v23i.3615

Keywords:

Article usage; Usage metrics; Altmetrics; Chinese journal; CNKI.

Abstract

Usage metrics have become increasingly popular in scientometric with the advent of electronic resources. While most current researches relied on the usage data retrieved from English publishers. In this study, the usage data was extended to Chinese publishers. We collected and analyzed the usage data of six well-known Chinese OA (Open Access) journals in different fields from journals’ official websites and Chinese Academic Journals Full-text Database (CJFD) in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). It was found that websites’ information architecture affected usage pattern. “Progressive rule”-based site guided users to view full-text articles more than download them and “parallel rule”-based site guided users to download full-text articles more than view them. CNKI proved its popularity in China. Although CNKI is a non-OA platform and has a time delay in indexing full-text articles, but they still attracted a large number of users. PDF tended to be the preferred format than HTML in most journals in the study. Also, CNKI citation were more skewedly distributed than usage data in most journals and it showed strong or moderate correlation between CNKI citation and CNKI full-text downloads in most journals. Finally, it depicted that usage data of most articles was at their peak around pagination month and at the bottom at very earlier or later months.

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