The citations-versus-downloads conversation continues. Nature Neuroscience's editors have analysed the number of downloads a paper receives immediately after its appearance online, and find a high correlation with its citation frequency years after publication. Associate editor Noah Gray provides the details at the journal's blog, Action Potential (http://blogs.nature.com/nn/actionpotential/2008/05/downloads_vs_citations.html).

Despite well-known concerns about impact factors, he notes, “these numbers are typically used to rate the importance or prominence of a particular journal, and thus by proxy, the importance of the individual papers published within”. This flawed association often leads individuals and organizations to equate the total number of citations with scientific impact.

Instead, the editors wanted to measure readership of an article that would reflect its levels of outside interest and perceived value. Although the “number of downloads” measure is subject to misuse and has its own flaws, it provides a piece of an alternative solution for a more informative picture of manuscript influence.