Overview of Altmetrics
Joseph Kraus University of Denver
For the CRC Library Advisory Board, June 13, 2015
Note:
• With approval, I am going to put this online at http://www.slideshare.net/jokrausdu/overview-of-altmetrics, so you don’t have to take prodigious notes.
Altmetrics
• Today, we are going to cover:
–What, who, when, where, why, and how
Other terms
• Article-Level Metrics
• Artifact-Level Metrics
Altmetrics – Who?
• Jason Priem, Heather Piwowar (ImpactStory)
• Euan Adie, Stacy Konkiel, Sara Rouhi (Altmetric)
• Andrea Michalek and Mike Buschman (Plum Analytics)
• Martin Fenner (PLOS)
• William Gunn (Mendeley)
Altmetrics – Who?
• Other interested parties
–NISO
–Publishers
–Librarians/Information Professionals
–Readers
–Policy makers
–Research Funders
Altmetrics – When?
• Right now and into the future
• Some services include digging into past usage of older information
Altmetrics – Where?
• Any place where people care about metrics
• San Francisco - DORA
Altmetrics – Why?
• More current usage data than citations
• Recent engagement and interactions – See who is engaging with your content
– See how they are engaging with it
– See where they are marking or saving it
• Who is downloading the content?
• Where are people using that content?
Altmetrics – Why?
• Concerning social media, “there is a danger that this form of communication is gaining too high a value and that we are losing sight of key metrics of scientific value, such as citation indices.”
• From http://genomebiology.com/2014/15/7/424
Altmetrics – Why?
• Molecular biologist Buddhini Samarasinghe noted that some researchers say: “‘Ha ha, let's laugh at those silly scientists doing social media outreach when they should be writing papers!’ The K-index trivialises those of us who work hard to communicate science with the public.”
Altmetrics – Why?
• Funders want to broaden the impact
• http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07046/nsf07046.jsp
• Altmetrics can help verify that the imapct has been broadened
Altmetrics – Why?
• Publish or perish culture
• Evaluate the quality of the work, not the container
• Some organizations say that the publication title is not under consideration
Altmetrics – How?
• Three main funding models for Altmetrics services companies – From publishers
– From libraries/institutions
– From authors/researchers
Altmetrics – How?
• Altmetric
– For Publishers
–Bookmarklet
–Bookmetrix
– For Institutions and/or individuals
Altmetrics – How?
• Plum Analytics
• http://www.plumanalytics.com/about.html
• Pitt and/or the University of Denver
Altmetrics – How?
• ImpactStory
–https://impactstory.org/JosephKraus
Altmetrics – How?
• GrowKudos.com
–Ann Lawson
– She has worked with someone at T&F
–https://growkudos.com/about/publishers
• AddThis & ShareThis services
Altmetrics – More examples
• From PLOS ONE
–http://www.plosone.org/article/Metrics/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0046150
Other things to investigate
• https://www.researchfish.com/ (for researchers & funding organizations)
• http://symplectic.co.uk/ (For institutions)
• http://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scival SciVal “Highlight the impact of their research for assessment and funding purposes”
• https://hootsuite.com/plans/enterprise
• https://dlvr.it/pages/learn-more.php (similar to addthis/twitterfeed)
Pop Quiz
• Who said or wrote:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Questions?
More information
• http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-13/
• http://crln.acrl.org/content/74/6/292.full
• http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/altmetrics
• https://kevinthelibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/altmetrics-and-evaluating-scholarly-impact-whats-out-there-and-how-can-we-participate/
Even more
• Library Journal article on Plum by Bonnie Swoger
• Assessing Altmetrics: Why law librarians (and law schools) should care about altmetrics
• https://www.diigo.com/user/jokrausdu/altmetrics
• Follow #altmetrics on Twitter • http://www.mendeley.com/groups/586171/
altmetrics/
Image credits
• Google Images, “labeled for reuse with modification”
• Raised hands http://www.ok.gov/abletech/images/Classroom-FourthGraders.jpg via http://www.ok.gov/abletech/Special_Education_Resolution_Center/
• https://twitter.com/IanMulvany/status/425006889949495296
