Altmetrics: the movement, the tools, and the implications Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS Andrea H. Denton, MILS January 27, 2015
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Altmetrics: the movement, the tools, and the implications
Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS Andrea H. Denton, MILS
January 27, 2015
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
From metrics to altmetrics
Measures
Traditional
Research Products
Trad
itio
nal
- Article - Chapter - Books
Times Cited Impact Factor + Rank
H-index
From metrics to altmetrics
Measures
Traditional New
Research Products
Trad
itio
nal
- Article - Chapter - Books
Times Cited Impact Factor +
Rank H-index
Page Views Downloads
The definition of scholarly output is changing
• 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."
From metrics to altmetrics
Measures
Traditional New
Research Products
Tr
adit
ion
al
- Article - Chapter - Books
Times Cited Impact Factor +
Rank H-index
Page Views
N
ew
- Datasets - Blog post - More
None
Downloads
Reblogs
Examples of additional scholarly output/professional contributions
• Blogs
• Invited Interviews
• Datasets
• Patents
• Software
• Copyrights
More examples of “altmeasuring”
• Downloads and page views
• Track-backs
• Tweets and retweets
• Links from review services (e.g. Facultyof1000)
• Sharing, social bookmarking
Other forces at work
• Increasing requirements for open data
– Foundation funding (e.g. Gates)
– Government funding
• Big data
• Predatory publishing
Tools
Journal-level tools
• Each publisher does it a slightly different way
Early tools for non-traditional products
• Measured web views and downloads
–Google Analytics
–Bit.ly
– Spring Metrics
Leading tools for altmetrics
• Evolved to address non-traditional scholarship as well as traditional “outputs”
– ImpactStory
– Altmetric.com
– PlumX
Impactstory
• “Impactstory is a place to learn and share all the ways your research is making a difference”
• Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar
• Free for 30 days, then $60 a year.
Profile Metrics
Article 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
– Springer
– BioMed Central
– BMJ Specialty journals
Nature Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
Altmetric Explorer
• Subscription product – monitor, search and measure conversations about your publications and those of your competitors
• “Pricing options”
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
Plum Analytics
• Gathers metrics (altmetrics) about research from more than thirty sources including PLOS, PubMed and YouTube, and categorizes them
• PlumX is an institutional “impact dashboard” that provides information on how research output is being utilized, interacted with, and talked about around the world.
Plum Analytics
• PlumX Metric Categories
– Usage (downloads, views, ILL)
– Captures (favorites, bookmarks)
– Mentions (blog posts, news, Wikipedia)
– Social Media (tweets, likes)
– Citations (PubMed, Scopus, patents)
PlumX in Action
• Pitt PlumX “dashboard” https://plu.mx/pitt/g/
• Michael Pinsky, MD https://plu.mx/u/mpinsky
Article View
However…
• Standards aren’t fully defined
– Definitions, calculations, etc.
– NISO effort
• Are altmetrics important for discovery? For evaluation? Both?
Issues
Issues
• Impact vs. attention
–David C.’s Improbable Science… “Why you should ignore altmetrics and other bibliometric nightmares”
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6369
• Popularity
–Popular topics get higher counts, quickly, but then fade. How does this reflect quality?
Issues
• Does social media help promote good science? Or not? (e.g. anti-vaccine)
Altmetrics: worth pursuing? If you think “yes”…
What you can do now
• Check what measurements/metrics are available for your articles
• Consider deposit of your other “products of research”
What you can do now
• Investigate use of free measurement tools (Altmetric bookmarklet, ImpactStory profile)
• Set up social media profiles and lurk
• Experiment with low-commitment activities
Example
• Choose a journal/database
• Find one of your articles
• Check the altmetrics
• Go to Twitter
• Search for your discipline/area of research
• See what information has been shared/who is sharing it
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