Altmetrics: the movement, the tools, and the implications

Kimberley R. Barker, MLIS Andrea Horne Denton, MILS

Claude Moore Health Sciences Library University of Virginia Health System

April 16, 2014

Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA

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

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 - Others

None Downloads

What other additional scholarly contributions can you think of?

• Blogs

• Invited Interviews

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Reddit

To recap: 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.

Other forces? • 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…

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