最近看到一篇英文博文，题目叫Download Counts Predict Future Impact of Scientific Papers。

文章大意是：衡量一篇学术论文的影响力，往往要看它的被引数（citation）。但是一篇论文发表后，往往要经过一段时间（某些领域是很长时间）才能看到大量的引用出现。有没有什么东西能够尽早地衡量论文的学术影响力呢？经过研究发现，下载量（从数据库中下载到个人电脑上的次数）与论文将来被引数量有很强的关联性。

下载量能否成为衡量论文学术影响力的指标，还是一个需要探讨的问题。但在出版商（信息提供商）这里，下载量（usage）是一个很关键的数据，专门有人监测和汇报。对于做产品推广的团队而言，下载量还是衡量业绩的一个重要指标。比如说爱思唯尔的ScienceDirect全文数据库，全文下载量到今年已经达到接近5亿次。还有客户曾经建议，电子产品的定价要把下载量作一个重要参考指标，下载量高，证明使用得好，单篇使用成本下降。不过，这还在探讨之中。

Download Counts Predict Future Impact of Scientific Papers
Category: academia • scientific literature
Posted on: April 11, 2009 1:45 PM, by Nick Anthis

The gold standard for measuring the impact of a scientific paper is counting the number of other papers that cite that paper. However, due to the drawn-out nature of the scientific publication process, there is a lag of at least a year or so after a paper is published before citations to it even begin to appear in the literature, and at least a few years are generally needed to get an accurate measure of how heavily cited an article will actually be. It's reasonable to ask, then, if there exists a mechanism to judge the impact of a paper much earlier in its lifetime.

http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2009/04/download_counts_predict.php