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Measuring scholarly impact has traditionally been tied to the calculation of a scholarly article’s number of citations and the Impact Factor of its journal. Today, however, scholarly contributions take many forms: computer code, data sets, blog postings, tweets, practice guidelines and beyond. As the products of research evolve, so will the way in which credit is measured. This class will provide an overview of “altmetrics”, the movement to assess influence of both traditional and non-traditional scholarly contributions. We will define altmetrics, discuss why it is important in today’s digital scholarly environment, and demonstrate tools available to measure influence. After completing this course, the learner will be able to define altmetrics and compare it to traditional forms of measuring scholarly impact; name examples of scholarly contributions that are alternatives to traditional methods (e.g. datasets, blog postings, tweets, etc.); name examples of alternative means of measuring scholarly contributions (e.g. download counts, tweets about, etc.); discuss why today’s online, social environment necessitates a change in the way scholarly contributions are measured; name resources to learn more about altmetrics such as altmetrics.org; and name tools to measure alternative scholarly contributions such as Altmetric.com, Impact Story, Plum Analytics, etc.
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Altmetrics: the movement, the tools, and the implications
Andrea Horne Denton, MILS
Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS
Defining altmetrics
• J. Priem (@jasonpriem), I like the term #articlelevelmetrics, but it fails to imply *diversity* of measures. Lately, I'm liking #altmetrics., 4:28 AM - 29 Sep 10, Tweet
• “…the creation and study of new metrics based on the Social Web for analyzing, and informing scholarship.”
– http://altmetrics.org/about/
Awareness, not promotion!
Why should you care?
Br J Sports Med doi:10.1136/bjsports-2013-092417
Before altmetrics…
• Traditional products and measures of academic success
– Publications
– Conference presentations/posters
– Committee work
– Number of times your work was cited
– Impact Factor and journal rank
– H-index
Altmetrics…
Measures
Traditional
Research Products
Trad
itio
nal
- Article - Chapter - Books
Times Cited Impact Factor + Rank
H-index
Altmetrics…
Measures
Traditional New
Research Products
Trad
itio
nal
- Article - Chapter - Book
Times Cited Impact Factor +
Rank H-index
Page Views Downloads
Altmetrics…
Measures
Traditional New
Research Products
Tr
adit
ion
al
- Article - Chapter
Impact Factor Page Views
N
ew
- Datasets - Blog post - Others
NONE Downloads
What other additional scholarly contributions can you think of?
• Blogs
• Invited Interviews
Why the shift?
• Academic work online
– Articles - measured by page views, downloads, etc?
– Academic work disseminated online, e.g. Figshare, SlideShare, etc.
• Academic engagement on social platforms
– i.e., serious discussion taking place on Twitter & Facebook
In a nutshell, academics are engaging in non-traditional arenas and rightfully want credit for that engagement.
Why the shift?
• Additional scholarly contributions:
– Data sets
– Patents
– Software
– Copyrights
NSF “Publications” broadened to “Products of Research” As of Jan 2013 “citable and accessible including but not limited to publications, data sets, software, patents, and copyrights."
How does “altmeasuring” work?
• Altmetrics are measured, just as are more traditional metrics, such as published articles
• New products require new measurements
Examples of new measurements
• Downloads and page views
• Track-backs
• Tweets and retweets
• Links from review services (e.g. Facultyof1000)
• Sharing, social bookmarking
Tools
Old-ish tools
• Google Analytics
• Bit.ly
• Spring Metrics (websites)
Emerging Tools
• ImpactStory
• Altmetric.com
• PlumX
ImpactStory
• Your impact profile on the web: we reveal the diverse impacts of your articles, datasets, software, and more
• Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar
• Free
Sample ImpactStory Profile
Profile Details
Profile Details
Altmetric.com
• London-based start-up
• Funding from Digital Science (LabGuru, FigShare)
Altmetric’s widget (“donut”)
• Used by publishers/journals
• Nature Publishing, Cell Press
• Royal Society of Chemistry as of Sept 2013
• BMJ specialty journals as of Oct 2013
• Springer
• Etc
• Etc
Altmetric Explorer
• Subscription product – monitor, search and measure conversations about your publications and those of your competitors £45 a month
Nature Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
RSC and Altmetric
RSC and Altmetric
Altmetric Bookmarklet
• Free
• Reading a paper and want to find out its Altmetric details? Install the bookmarklet in your browser
• When viewing the paper, “Altmetric it”
Altmetric Bookmarklet
Altmetric Bookmarklet
Plum Analytics
• PlumX analysis tool
• Bought by EBSCO, a provider of library subscription databases and journals
Plum Analytics
• Plum Metrics
– Usage (downloads, views, ILL)
– Captures (favorites, bookmarks)
– Mentions (blog posts, news, Wikipedia)
– Social media (tweets, likes)
– Citations (PubMed, Scopus, patents)
PlumX: the basics
• Analysis tool aimed at helping institutions understand influence of researchers’ work through altmetrics
• Compiles institutional repository data with other data sources
• Works with customers to add initial data in bulk- individuals then claim info (can use ORCID ID)
• Pitt PlumX “dashboard” https://plu.mx/pitt/g/
• Michael Pinsky, MD https://plu.mx/u/mpinsky
PlumX
Metrics Preview in Search Results
PlumX Author Profiles
Artifact View
However...
However…
The Debate… • Impact vs. attention
• David C.’s Improbable Science… “Why you should ignore altmetrics and other bibliometric nightmares”
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6369
• Popular topics get higher counts, quickly, but then fade? How does this reflect quality?
The Debate…
• Does social media help promote good science? Or not? (e.g. anti-vaccine)
Positives & Negatives
• Positives
– Speed of feedback
– More complete picture of scholarly activities
• Negatives
– Not commonly recognized by scholars/administrators
– Can be “gamed”
Altmetrics: worth pursuing?
If you’re interested…
• Some next steps:
–Investigate use of measurement tools
–Set up social media profiles and lurk
–Experiment with low-commitment activities
See our LibGuide for further resources
http://guides.hsl.virginia.edu/hsl-altmetrics
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