{"doi":"10.1002/asi.23286","title":"Who reads research articles? An altmetrics analysis of <scp>M</scp>endeley user categories","abstract":"<jats:p>Little detailed information is known about who reads research articles and the contexts in which research articles are read. Using data about people who register in <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>endeley as readers of articles, this article explores different types of users of <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">C</jats:styled-content>linical <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>edicine, <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">E</jats:styled-content>ngineering and <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">T</jats:styled-content>echnology, <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">S</jats:styled-content>ocial <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">S</jats:styled-content>cience, <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">P</jats:styled-content>hysics, and <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">C</jats:styled-content>hemistry articles inside and outside academia. The majority of readers for all disciplines were <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">PhD</jats:styled-content> students, postgraduates, and postdocs but other types of academics were also represented. In addition, many <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">C</jats:styled-content>linical <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>edicine articles were read by medical professionals. The highest correlations between citations and <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>endeley readership counts were found for types of users who often authored academic articles, except for associate professors in some sub‐disciplines. This suggests that <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>endeley readership can reflect usage similar to traditional citation impact if the data are restricted to readers who are also authors without the delay of impact measured by citation counts. At the same time, <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">M</jats:styled-content>endeley statistics can also reveal the hidden impact of some research articles, such as educational value for nonauthor users inside academia or the impact of research articles on practice for readers outside academia.</jats:p>","journal":"Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology","year":2015,"id":6274,"datarank":8.739399123071884,"base_score":5.288267030694535,"endowment":5.288267030694535,"self_citation_contribution":0.7932400546041803,"citation_network_contribution":7.946159068467703,"self_endowment_contribution":0.7932400546041803,"citer_contribution":7.946159068467703,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":197,"citer_count":153,"citers_with_citation_signal":145,"citers_with_endowment":145,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0717,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2015-04-29","algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":20392,"name":"Michael Thelwall","orcid":"0000-0001-6065-205X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":653,"name":"Stefanie Haustein","orcid":"0000-0003-0157-1430","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228,"name":"Vincent Larivière","orcid":"0000-0002-2733-0689","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":58438,"name":"Ehsan Mohammadi","orcid":"0000-0003-1196-5994","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":78,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}