Imperial College London

Henry Rzepa

With metrics in science publishing controversial to say the least, I
pondered whether to write about the* impact*/*influence* a science-based
blog might have (never mind whether it constitutes any measure of
*esteem*). These are all terms that feature large when an (academic)
organisation undertakes a survey of its researchers' effectiveness.^‡^
WordPress (the organisation that provides the software used for this
blog) recently enhanced the stats it offers for its users, and one of
these caught my eye.

[![impact-factor](http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/impact-factor.jpg){.aligncenter
.size-full .wp-image-9258 decoding="async"
width="470"}](http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/impact-factor.jpg)

The above represents the demographics for the readership of this blog
over the last ten months. In no particular order, I noted the following
aspects:

1.  The total number of countries listed was 144.
2.  The country coming third was India.
3.  China came 51st. I noted this since it was recently [announced in
    the
    news](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20975580){target="_blank"}
    that China leads the world by a significant margin in patents
    granted for *e.g.* graphene research, with South Korea third. It
    would also be fair to say that China also heads the field for
    the number of chemists with a Ph.D. degree.
4.  There are some interesting gaps in the world map, from where not a
    single hit was recorded. I really must crack Greenland! 
5.  WordPress does not provide a demographic breakdown for individual
    posts, which would be an interesting one to see.

One does not get such statistics from conventional scientific
publishers, where the number of citations of an article is considered
far more important than the demographics of its readership. However, I
cannot help but note that access to journals is largely controlled by
paid-for subscriptions (the GOLD-OA model has yet to make a big impact
in chemistry I fear), whereas blogs in contrast are almost entirely open
(although access to them may be restricted in some countries). 

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‡  I once listened to a talk by a manager whose mantra was the three
e's:  effective, efficient and economic.  

::: {.wp_orcid_field}
[https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8635-8390](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8635-8390){target="_blank"
rel="author"}
:::


With metrics in science publishing controversial to say the least, I pondered whether to write about the* impact*/

 influence

a science-based blog might have (never mind whether it constitutes any measure of

 esteem

). These are all terms that feature large when an (academic) organisation undertakes a survey of its researchers’ effectiveness.

 ‡

WordPress (the organisation that provides the software used for this

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

The demographics of a blog readership.