A Comprehensive Dataset of the Spanish Research Output and Its Associated Social Media and Altmetric Mentions (2016–2020)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript "A comprehensive dataset of the Spanish research output and its associated social media and altmetric mentions (2016-2020)" describes a data set of altmetrics data of publications authored by scientists at Spanish institutions and the construction of this data set. The data set consists of a file on the paper basis and another file on the author basis. I wonder if the authors asked the data providers for permission to share this data set.

How were the names of authors and institutions disambiguated?

I would recommend to interchange sections 2 and 3. At least I read the methods section before the data description because I quickly noticed that I was missing a few cents on a dime when I started to read the data description first.

More specific comments follow below:

Line 8: "... research publications authored by Spanish institutions ... ." This might be a bit picky but Spanish institutions can't author research publications. Scientists affiliated with Spanish institutions can author research publications.

Line 14: "The second dataset includes 4,209 and 4 attributes." This should probably read: "The second dataset includes 4,209 records and 4 attributes."

Lines 22/23: "Altmetrics, alternative metrics for measuring the outreach of scientific publications through social media [1], have been integrated into the research evaluation [2]." This might be again a bit picky: I think that scientific publications can't have outreach through social media. Scientific publications can be mentioned in social media. Furthermore, I'd say that ref. 2 discussed social media in the context of research evaluation. Integration of social media into research evaluation needs additional steps in my opinion.

Lines 26-28: Is it possible to provide a link to the research project of the description thereof?

Line 45: "... scientific publications of Spanish researchers ... ." According to line 74-75, "publications ... in which an author with Spanish affiliation is listed" were used. This does not have to coincide with the nationality of the researchers although it might in most of the cases. This might be a bit picky again.

Lines 53-54 explain that the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) is included as Influratio in the data set. I find this confusing. The term "Influratio" implies that it is a ratio. The AAS is not a ratio.

Line 54 states that the altmetrics data are from March 3, 2021. The data set is more than one year old now. The authors should explain what it is good for to publish this data set.

Line 86: "... 255 subject category ..." --> "... 255 subject categories ..."

Are there links where refs. 6 and 7 are available?

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewer for the valuable comments. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors describe a data set that contains a large amount of data extracted from the Web of Science database. I doubt whether the authors are allowed to publish this data. It may constitute a violation of the Web of Science terms of use. The authors need to investigate this. If publication of the data is not allowed, the authors should delete the data and this paper should not be published.

Author Response

We understand the concern about sharing Web of Science data, but our dataset does not include any data from any Clarivate platform. We have only used Web of Science as an intermediary source to identify publications authored by Spanish researchers and then recover their mentions from Altmetric.com. In this sense, the authors’ names of the publications have been normalized and clustered and a new paper subject classification has been implemented. Thus, the shared data do not include any fields directly extracted from Web of Science. With regards to Altmetric.com, we have signed an agreement to share the data.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

My comments have been sufficiently addressed.

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewer for the comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

There is a problem with the data availability statement and the acknowledgments section in the revised paper. These two sections seem to contain a standard text taken from a template provided by the publisher. The authors need to fix this.

Moreover, the authors have given a satisfactory explanation in response to my question about their use of Web of Science data, but the authors should also incorporate this explanation in their paper, since other readers of the paper may have the same question.

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewer for the comments. Data availability statement has been completed (copyright explanation has been included here) and acknowledgments section has been removed.