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. 2023 Jan 11;7(1):e44.
doi: 10.1017/cts.2022.530. eCollection 2023.

Evaluating the impact of a CTSA program from 2008 to 2021 through bibliometrics, social network analysis, and altmetrics

Fei Yu  1 , Tanha Patel  2   3 , Andrea Carnegie  2   3 , Gaurav Dave  2   3
Affiliations

Evaluating the impact of a CTSA program from 2008 to 2021 through bibliometrics, social network analysis, and altmetrics

Fei Yu et al. J Clin Transl Sci. .

Abstract

Introduction: We evaluate a CTSA program hub by applying bibliometrics, social network analysis (SNA), and altmetrics and examine the changes in research productivity, citation impact, research collaboration, and CTSA-supported research topics since our pilot study in 2017.

Methods: The sampled data included North Carolina Translational and Clinical Science Institute (NC TraCS)-supported publications produced between September 2008 and March 2021. We applied measures and metrics from bibliometrics, SNA, and altmetrics to the dataset. In addition, we analyzed research topics and correlations between different metrics.

Results: 1154 NC TraCS-supported publications generated over 53,560 citation counts by April 2021. The average cites per year and the relative citation ratio (RCR) mean of these publications improved from 33 and 2.26 in 2017 to 48 and 2.58 in 2021. The number of involved UNC units in the most published authors' collaboration network increased from 7 (2017) to 10 (2021). NC TraCS-supported co-authorship involved 61 NC organizations. PlumX metrics identified articles with the highest altmetrics scores. About 96% NC TraCS-supported publications have above the average SciVal Topic Prominence Percentile; the average approximate potential to translate of the included publication was 54.2%; and 177 publications addressed health disparity issues. Bibliometric measures (e.g., citation counts, RCR) and PlumX metrics (i.e., Citations, Captures, and Social-Media) are positively correlated (p < .05).

Conclusion: Bibliometrics, SNA, and altmetrics offer distinctive but related perspectives to examine CTSA research performance and longitudinal growth, especially at the individual program hub level. These perspectives can help CTSAs build program foci.

Keywords: CTSA evaluation; altmetrics; bibliometrics; social network analysis; translational research.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
The STPP distribution of NC TraCS-supported publications (September 2008–March 2021) (N = 1,115) (Note: NC TraCS = North Carolina Translational and Clinical Institute; STPP = SciVal Topic Prominence Percentile; 90–99 percentile (N = 730; 80–89 percentile (N = 217); 70–79 percentile (N = 66); 50–69 percentile (N = 61); 0–49 percentile (N = 36); No data (N = 5)).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
High article density of NC TraCS-supported research on human health (N = 1,154) (Note: NC TraCS, North Carolina Translational and Clinical Institute; iCite Translational Module generated the visualization).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
MeSH term co-occurrence network map (N = 177 publications; 72 MeSH terms with co-occurrence >5 times) (Note: MeSH, Medical Subject Heading).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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