Abstract: The number of full-text paper downloads is the most commonly used index of database performance evaluation, but can this index accurately and effectively evaluate the performance of database use? The number of citations in the database was obtained by using the Web of Science platform, and the correlation between full-text downloads and citations was analyzed by Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the full-text downloads index in evaluating the performance of the database use, and to provide reference for the performance evaluation of the foreign journal database use. It is shown that the correlation between full-text downloads and citations is strong. The index of full-text downloads is objective and effective to evaluate the performance of the database use. The accuracy of the evaluation results can be improved by using the data of downloads for consecutive years. The accuracy of the evaluation results is higher when both the download number and the citation index are used to evaluate the performance of the database use.

Key words: Foreign journal database, Downloads, Citations, Performance evaluation