Download data versus traditional impact metrics : measuring impact in a sample of biomedical doctoral dissertations

Download data and traditional impact metrics such as citation analysis both measure usage and possible impact of research. The case chosen for this analysis is based on dissertations of a cohort at the Sahlgrenska Academy, the faculty of Health Sciences of University of Gothenburg. At the Academy, a committee responsible for the PhD education selects the "Best doctoral thesis" of the year. This made it possible to carry out additional analysis, as examining the relationship between peer judgement and usage data (citations and downloads), and studying how promotional activities influence the usage of the dissertations. This praxis-oriented research investigates how a university library can develop different methods to provide valid user data. Analyses were carried out using field normalized citation scores and aggregated usage log data. Bivariate analysis measured the correlation between the data. The results showed no correlation between downloads and citations. However, there was a positive correlation between the peer judgments and field normalized citation scores, and between PR activities and usage through downloading.