Impact of Social Sciences – 2017 in review: round-up of our top posts on metrics

Although the use of citation counts as indicators of scholarly impact has well-documented limitations, it does offer insight into what articles are read and valued. However, one major disadvantage of citation counts is that they are slow to accumulate. Mike Thelwall has examined reader counts from Mendeley and found them to be a useful source of early impact information. Mendeley reader data can be recorded from the moment an article appears online and so avoids the publication cycle delays that so slow down the visibility of citations.