Kardashian Index Explained

The Kardashian Index (K-Index), named after media personality Kim Kardashian, is a satirical measure of the discrepancy between a scientist's social media profile and publication record.[1] [2] Proposed by Neil Hall in 2014, the measure compares the number of followers a research scientist has on Twitter to the number of citations they have for their peer-reviewed work.

Definition

The relationship between the expected number of Twitter followers

F

given the number of citations

C

is described asF(C) = 43.3\,C^,

which is derived from the Twitter accounts and citation counts of a "randomish selection of 40 scientists" in 2014. The Kardashian Index is thus calculated as\text = \frac,

where

Fa

is the actual number of Twitter followers of researcher

X

, and

F(C)

is the number that researcher should have, given their citations.

Interpretation

A high K-index indicates an over-blown scientific fame, while a low K-index suggests that a scientist is being undervalued. According to the author Hall, researchers whose K-index > 5 can be considered "Science Kardashians". Hall wrote:[1]

Hall also added "a serious note" noticing the gender disparity in his sample. Of 14 female scientists, 11 had lower than predicted K-indices, while only one of the high-index scientists was female.[1]

On February 11, 2022, on Twitter, Neil Hall stated that he intended the Kardashian Index to be a “dig at metrics not Kardashians” and that “the entire premise is satire”.[3]

Response

Many jocular indices of scientific productivity were proposed in the immediate aftermath of publication of the K-Index paper.[2] The Tesla Index measured social isolation of scientists relative to their productivity, named after Nikola Tesla, whose work was hugely influential, while he remained a social recluse.[4] People tweeted suggestions hashtagged #alternatesciencemetrics.[2] [5]

In 2022, John Ioannidis authored a paper in The BMJ arguing that signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration about how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic were shunned as a fringe minority by those in favor of the John Snow Memorandum. According to him, the latter used their large numbers of followers on Twitter and other social media and op-eds to shape a scientific "groupthink" against the former, who had less influence.[6] The version of the index that Ioannidis used Scopus citations instead of Google Scholar citations, since many of the signatories had no Google Scholar pages.[7]

The K-index suggests that the number of citations of a given scientist is comparable to their scientific value. This assumption has been criticized.[8] [9]

The proposal of the K-Index has been interpreted as a criticism to the assumption that scientists should have a social media impact at all, while in reality, social media footprint has no correlation to the scientific quality or scientific impact.[10]

See also

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists. Genome Biology. 7. July 30, 2014. 10.1186/s13059-014-0424-0. 15. 424. 25315513. 4165362. Hall. N. free .
  2. Griggs . Mary Beth . When Scientists, Social Media, and the Kardashians Collide . August 15, 2014 . 2022-04-17 . Smithsonian Magazine . en . The paper, meant to be satirical, was titled 'The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists' .....
  3. Hall . Neil . neilhall_uk . 1492259823114723329 . 11 February 2022 . @GidMK @WvSchaik It's a dig at metrics not Kardashians. It's like taking a quiz to see what character from Game of Thrones you are and finding out you're Joffrey Baratheon. It doesn't matter it's not a real test. Thankfully . en . 21 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220214201456/https://twitter.com/neilhall_uk/status/1492259823114723329 . 14 February 2022 . live.
  4. Web site: July 31, 2014 . Keith . Bradnam . The Tesla index: a measure of social isolation for scientists . 2022-04-20 . ACGT . en-GB.
  5. Rothkopf . Joanna . 2014-08-04 . The Kardashian index and the 10 best #alternatesciencemetrics tweets . 2022-04-20 . Salon . en . https://web.archive.org/web/20140807214130/https://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/the_kardashian_index_and_the_10_best_alternatesciencemetrics_tweets/ . 2014-08-07 . dead.
  6. News: Knapton . Sarah . February 15, 2022 . Lockdown debate skewed because sceptical scientists were shunned on social media . en-GB . The Telegraph . March 3, 2022 . 0307-1235.
  7. Ioannidis . John . February 1, 2022 . Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy . BMJ Open . en . 12 . 2 . e052891 . 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-052891 . 2044-6055 . 35140152. 8829837 .
  8. Web site: Introducing the "K Index".
  9. Web site: Citations are not a measure of quality . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140819090745/http://biomickwatson.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/citations-are-not-a-measure-of-quality/ . 2014-08-19.
  10. Houstein . Stefanie . Peters . Isabella . Sugimoto . Cassidy R. . Cassidy Sugimoto. Thelwall . Mike . Larivière . Vincent . April 2014 . Tweeting biomedicine: An analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature . Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology . 65 . 4 . 656–669 . 10.1002/asi.23101. 1308.1838 . 11113356 .

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