Just leaving these two tables here as I reflect on the impact of my work and where I choose to put it. The scale isn’t even close. And this doesn’t even factor in interactivity… (e.g., my 80 blog posts that have received at least 30 comments, including one that has received 618!)
Over 4.4 million page views and counting!
Congratulations Scott!
Of course, the reach of a blog is larger but how does one compare views with citations?
Hi Priyank!
I think of it in terms of engagement: how many people are engaging with my work? Although scholarly citations aren’t the same as people actually reading my research, I’m pretty sure 400,000 people haven’t read my journal articles!
If I’m trying to reach educators and impact schools, the difference is stark…
So citations and page views are not quite the same – if you are to push this further you would need an outcome based on something you have written. Not easy to envision. Both as well are not built on the same premises- one is to advance science the other to reach a wider public.
Apples and oranges
Hi JF,
I understand they’re not the same. But they’re approximate indicators of reach and impact. As I said in my previous comments, I’m pretty sure that 400,000 people haven’t read my top ten journal articles!
I started to dig into your tables and started to wonder about the recency of each of these artifacts. In the case of the journal articles, it was easy to note the year in which it was published. The *most recent* publication in your top 10 was from 2014. I couldn’t quite gather the years for some of the blog pages (blog posts was easier), however I am speculating at least a few of the blog posts/pages in your top ten are more recent than 2014. I guess the point I was thinking about was two-fold: 1) There’s usually a bit of a relationship between older publications and higher citation counts (perhaps an obvious point), and 2) A wildly popular blog post / page can go viral and rack up the page views in a short amount of time, which isn’t always related to how long it’s been searchable in Google.
Hi Matt!
Yes, for both journal articles and blog posts, time increases citation/viewer counts. I benefit from being a (fairly) consistent blogger for 14 years (and a professor for 16 years) compared to newer faculty like yourself. And if I ever have a journal article that goes ‘viral’ like some of my blog posts have, I’ll be amazed! 🙂