All entries for Tuesday 07 January 2025

2024 Retrospective: Most Popular Issue

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/archive

Which of our 30 published issues had the most whole-issue downloads during 2024? Some of the results may surprise you – they did us!

As has been our long tradition at the start of a new year, I like to look back over the past 12 months at some of the statistics for the most popular items appearing in Exchanges as well as podcast listener levels too. This year thanks to an OJS system reporting update, I’m also able to share for the first time, which were the most popular whole issues of the journal – this is in terms of the number of downloads of entire issues.[1] Readers will probably know it is possible to download the entire contents of each Exchanges issue as a single file, and this is what we’re tracking. When it comes to individual articles, I’ll be sharing those insights in a future post in the coming days.

At a glance, it is (perhaps) no surprise how our glorious Research Culture ‘24 special issue (vol 11.3) is riding high – given the vast size of the issue and wide range of authors and topics appearing in that issue. If anything, I would have been surprised NOT to have seen this issue atop our chart, and its appearance is a credit to everyone involved in its creation.[2] I am more surprised but still delighted to see another of our special issues, vol 9.3 The Lonely Nerd appearing close behind in the number 2 position. Gratifying to see a few years on that this fascinating collection of articles is still resonating with our readership, as it did at the time of publication too. The third position is taken by last year’s regular spring issue (vol 11.2), which is pleasing to see, although doubtlessly it has beaten out the other issues published last year simply due to having had the longest stretch of time post-publication to make an impression! [3]

Now, the fourth place is another little surprise, as it’s vol 5.2 – the very first issue with myself as Chief Editor, which is oddly slightly gratifying. I don’t recall this one being especially impactful,[4] but clearly it remains resonate with the readership 7 years on. Now, that is quite an impressive legacy! Finally, in our top 5 chart it is another of our recent issues, as 2023’s closing volume 11.1 arrives in a most commendable fifth place. This was our 10^th birthday issue, as you might recall. While I would love to assume that its celebratory and retrospective contents have helped its continuing traction with readers, I strongly suspect it’s the enduring quality of the articles which provided any uplift!

And the wooden spoon? Someone always has to be last, and unsurprisingly it’s the very first issue of Exchanges (vol 1.1) from back in 2013. Along with a number of issues from 2017 and older, this publication scored no actual downloads of full issues last year – although individual articles still saw interest. How did it come last when there are other without whole issue downloads? Well, that’s because I can also track visitors to each journal issue’s landing page too, on top of downloads. Among these, poor old vol 1.1 has the lowest overall figure, which given it was our first issue all those years ago, is something which doesn’t come as a massive surprise to me.

Anyway, that’s your guide to the hottest issues of last year – which one was your favourite? Let me know! See you in the next post to look at most popular podcast episodes!

Endnotes

[1] There is, no doubt, a more sophisticated analysis which can be done here – normalising the downloads against the number of total articles.

[2] It has around 40% more downloads than the issue in second place. A worthy winner.

[3] For the record the other issues of 2024 - vol 11.4 (MRC) was in sixth, and vol 12.1 (October ’24) in 15^th, out of 30 issues overall.

[4] I mostly remember the scramble to get it published as I frantically worked through the first month or two of my new post.

Gareth Johnson : Yesterday 11:14 |  Tags: 2024 Downloads Issues Retrospective Statistics Whole |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem