Altmetrics are often referred to as if they are a single class of indicator, but they’re actually quite diverse and include:
A record of attention: This class of metrics can indicate how many people have been exposed to and engaged with a scholarly output. Examples of this include mentions in the news, blogs, and on Twitter; article pageviews and downloads; GitHub repository watchers.
A measure of dissemination: These metrics (and the underlying mentions) can help you understand where and why a piece of research is being discussed and shared, both among other scholars and in the public sphere. Examples of this would include coverage in the news; social sharing and blog features.
An indicator of influence and impact: Some of the data gathered via altmetrics can signal that research is changing a field of study, the public’s health, or having any other number of tangible effects upon larger society. Examples of this include references in public policy documents; or commentary from experts and practitioners.
Each of these different dimensions can tell a much more nuanced story of research’s value than citation counts alone are able to.
It is important to bear in mind that metrics (including citation-based metrics) are merely indicators–they can point to interesting spikes in different types of attention, etc but are not themselves evidence of such.
To get at true evidence of impact, you need to dig deeper into the numbers and look at the qualitative data underneath: who’s saying what about research, where in the world research is being cited, reused, read, etc, and so on.
Altmetrics have a number of advantages over citation-based metrics:
They are quicker to accumulate than citation-based metrics: By virtue of being sourced from the Web and not from journals and books, it’s possible to monitor and collate mentions of work online as soon as it’s published.
They can capture more diverse impacts than citation-based metrics: As described above, altmetrics can complement citations in that they help you to understand the many ‘flavours’ of impact research can have.
They apply to more than journal articles and books: Researchers are sharing their data, software, presentations, and other scholarly outputs online more than ever before. That means we can track their use on the Web as easily as we can for articles and books.
How to use Altmetrics
Altmetrics are becoming widely used in academia, by individuals (as evidence of influence for promotion and tenure and in applying for grants), institutions (for benchmarking a university’s overall performance), libraries (for making collections management decisions and understanding the use of IR and digital library content), and publishers (to benchmark their journals’ performance in specific subject areas) alike.
Some important things to bear in mind when using altmetrics include:
There are a number of limitations to the use of altmetrics:
AlmetricAltmetric tracks a range of sources to capture and collate this activity, helping you to monitor and report on the attention surrounding the work you care about.
Altmetrics are alternative metrics used to measure the impact of research.
The term altmetrics was first proposed in a tweet by Jason Priem in 2010, and further detailed in a manifesto.
The term is not clearly defined, but can be characterised by a number of related descriptions:
i) Measures of impact based on online activity, which are mined or gathered from online tools and social media. For example:
ii) Metrics for alternative research outputs, for example citations to datasets.
iii) Other alternative ways of measuring research impact.
Altmetrics can be used as an alternative, or in addition, to traditional metrics such as citation counts and impact factors.
Image: Altmetric bookmarklet result for the article: Piwowar, H. (2013). Altmetrics: value all research products. Nature, 493(7431), 159-159. Screenshot taken Nov 4 2014.
Many databases and e-journals now have Altmetric information embedded in the articles' pages.
Look out for an Altmetric box, Am score button, Article metrics link, or similar, and click through to view the full article-level metrics.
If a database or e-journal does not have embedded altmetric information, you can use the Altmetric bookmarklet.
For some examples, see the databases and e-journals below:
Each article has an 'Am score' button. Click the button to view article level metrics.
View any article and click the 'Article metrics' link.
View any article and click the 'Article metrics' link to the right, under the 'Associated material' heading.
When viewing the details of a journal article, the number of views, and also citations counts from CrossRef, the Web of Science, and Scopus, and an Altmetric widget are displayed where relevant.
There are three main tools which aggregate altmetrics from a wide variety of different websites and online tools:
Gathers article level metrics for papers, and provides altmetric data for publishers, institutions and researchers. Requires a subscription, but Altmetric widgets are included in some databases and eJournals (eg Nature). You can also use the free Altmetric bookmarklet to view altmetric information for any online article with a DOI.
Collates altmetric information for a broad range of research outputs including traditional publications like journal articles, as well as blog posts, datasets, and software. It can be used to build a profile that showcases the impact of these research outputs. Free 30 day trial; $60 per year. Librarians can request a free account for demonstration purposes.
Collects impact metrics in 5 categories - captures, usage, citations, mentions, and social media - for over 20 different types of artifacts including journal articles, books, videos, presentations, datasets, source code, and more. It collects metrics for individual research artifacts, but also for labs, departments and other groups. PlumX Metrics icons appear in our EBSCO databases, including Discovery.
By following these 3 easy steps you can get your research to be tracked in Altmetric Explorer.