Research Performance and Ranking of South African Universities Using Altmetric Data

Abstract

This article used Altmetrics data extracted from Altmetric.com to rank twenty-two public universities in South Africa that yielded data in the database, as well as to compare their altmetrics and webometrics rankings. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses were conducted to uncover the universities' ranking patterns across several indicators and sources. The findings reveal that the historically advantaged universities that have continued to dominate the global ranking systems performed better than the historically disadvantaged universities. There were strong and positively significant relationships between altmetrics and the citation-based rankings on the one hand, and the webometrics rankings on the other hand – albeit a few instances of weak relationships between the variables. The authors propose the consideration of altmetrics as alternative impact indicators in the global rankings systems in an attempt to achieve a more robust and pluralistic picture.