Exploring the differences between the academic and social impacts of journal cover and non-cover papers is crucial for evaluating scientific research. We compared the differences in citations and Altmetric scores between cover and non-cover papers published in Nature. Six dimensions were considered: coverage, annual geometric mean and median, interval distribution, correlation coefficient, impact significance, and subject terms. We analysed the citations of 1,266 cover and 10,241 non-cover papers from 2006 to 2015 and the characteristics of the Altmetric scores and interdisciplinary subjects of 503 cover and 5,361 non-cover papers from 2011 to 2015. The results of our empirical study demonstrate that the citations and Altmetric scores of cover papers are significantly higher than those of non-cover papers, though a smaller difference was observed in more recent years. The Spearman correlation coefficients of the citations with Altmetric scores and several subdivision indices of cover papers were higher than those of non-cover papers in more recent years. Furthermore, the degree of influence of cover papers on citations and Altmetric scores was higher than that of non-cover papers. In biological sciences, physical sciences, and other interdisciplinary subjects, the degree of interdisciplinarity between highly cited and high-Altmetric-score cover papers was relatively high.

探索期刊封面和非封面论文的学术和社会影响之间的差异对于评估科学研究至关重要。我们比较了《自然》杂志发表的封面和非封面论文在引文和Altmetric得分上的差异。考虑了六个维度：覆盖率，年度几何平均值和中位数，区间分布，相关系数，影响显着性和主题词。我们分析了2006年至2015年的1,266篇封面文章和10,241篇非封面论文的引文以及2011年至2015年503篇封面文章和5,361篇非封面论文的Altmetric得分和跨学科主题的特征。我们的实证研究结果表明，封面论文的引文和Altmetric得分显着高于非封面论文，尽管近年来观察到的差异较小。近年来，带有Altmetric得分和几种细分指数的被引文献的Spearman相关系数高于非封面论文。此外，封面论文对引文和Altmetric得分的影响程度高于非封面论文。在生物科学，物理科学和其他跨学科学科中，高引用和高测验得分封面论文之间的跨学科程度相对较高。