Resource Guides: Research Impact: Altmetrics

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What Are Altmetrics?

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, are new ways to track and measure scholarly influence and research impact in real time. They measure the attention an article (or any sort of online publication) has received online, including social media mentions, news coverage, downloads, bookmarks, blog mentions, etc. They are complementary to traditional bibliometrics such as the Journal Impact Factor and personal citation indices like the H-index.

"Altmetrics should be used in parallel with impact factors and citation counts to add a more nuanced, qualitative side to impact." (A Brief Introduction to Altmetrics for Researchers) See the Nature Jobs blogpost "Metrics with Meaning: Shaping Your Scholarly Identity" on how tracking scholarly scientific output can be beneficial to a researcher's career.

Learn more at whatarealtmetrics.com.

Pros and Cons of Altmetrics

Pros

Fast
Allow assessment directly at the article level (rather than the journal)
Accommodate other products: posters, datasets, blog posts, etc.
Measure "hidden impact" (impact without citations)
Provide evidence of impact for CVs, tenure packages, & grant applications
Provide context and meaning for download counts
Provide evidence of public impact and engagement for funders & other stakeholders
Complementary to traditional citation-based metrics

Cons

Impact can be exaggerated through data manipulation ("gaming")
Can be difficult to interpret
Rely on 3rd-party data souces
Metrics can only be accurate if name and object information is accurate

Altmetrics Tools

Below are listed some comprehensive tools. Article level metrics are also available from an increasing number of publisher websites, such as PLOS, Frontiers, and Elsevier's Scopus product.

Altmetric
Compiles article level metrics by tracking and analyzing the online activity around scholarly literature in social media sites, newspapers, government policy documents and other sources. Altmetric Explorer for Institutions is now available to the UMMS community!
Impactstory Profiles
Researchers can create an "impact profile" of all their research products—from traditional ones like journal articles, to emerging products like blog posts, datasets, and software.
Plum Analytics
Collects, tracks, and measures research impact for both individuals and groups.

Helpful Introductory Resources about Altmetrics

Altmetric Mentions and the Communication of Medical Research
The February 2015 research report "Altmetric Mentions and the Communication of Medical Research: Disseminating Research Outcomes Outside Academia" looks at whether data emerging from media ‘mentions’ of medical research provide timely indicators of outcomes linked to social and technical innovation for stakeholders in networks beyond academia.
Altmetrics, from Wikipedia
Altmetrics: A Manifesto
White paper by Priem et al. which first described the value of altmetrics.
Altmetrics in Context
From the Canadian Association of Research Libraries
Article-Level Metrics: A SPARC Primer
Guide to understanding the basics of Article-Level Metrics that explores the definition, application, opportunities and challenges presented by ALMs.
Keeping Up With... Altmetrics
From the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).
Research Trends - special issue on altmetrics (June 2014)
Tips & Tricks: Promoting Your Research Online
Flyer from Altmetric.com that explains how researchers can attract attention to their work and make sure that mentions of their work are picked up by Altmetric.com.
What are altmetrics?
A web source defining and identifying article level metrics, by Altmetric.com

Who Is Using Altmetrics?

Many organizations are already actively collecting or displaying altmetrics data: popular scientific publishers (PLOS, Cell Press, Nature Publishing Group); platforms or online communities (ResearchGate, Mendeley, F1000, Scopus); and repositories (PMC, eScholarship@UMMS). There are more every day.

Altmetrics in Action: An Example from Nature

These are the article metrics for a Nature article published in 2013 by Jeanne Lawrence's team in the Dept of Cell and Developmental Biology where they demonstrated that they could silence the extra chromosome responsible for Down Syndrome. The Altmetric Attention Score is a measure of the attention an article has received online, including social media mentions, news coverage, and online reference manager counts.