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"The term "altmetrics" is short for "alternative metrics." These are a range of nontraditional metrics that can be used to assess the impact that scholars have on research in their areas of study. They can include the number of article downloads, citation of research in online news/social media sources, Mendeley bookmarks (a web-based system for sharing and extracting information from PDFs and other electronic documents), and nontraditional forms of scholarship.
"Altmetrics are measures of scholarly impact mined from activity in online tools and environments," says Jason Priem, a doctoral student, Royster Fellow at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and author of Altmetrics: A Manifesto (www.altmetrics.org). "Given the potential of Twitter as an altmetrics source, I think it's fitting the word was, as far as I know, first used as part of a tweet."
Careless, J. (2013). Altmetrics 101: A Primer. (cover story). Information Today, 30(2), 1-36. [Accessed June, 2014].
Getting started with Altmetrics:
Tell Your Story:
You can use impact metrics, including altmetrics, to present your scholarly work in multiple ways:
... and any other context where you need to demonstrate your impact.
Examples of different types of narrative statements that incorporate impact metrics.
A short guide from Altmetric.com with suggestions for incorporating their data into a biosketch.
Keep in mind:
Source: Loria, P. (2013). Impact beyond metrics: Telling your research impact story. (.ppt) [Accessed June, 2014].
Attempts to use data derived from social media sources as measures of research influence are intriguing efforts to refine and improve accepted methods, which are widely seen as unsatisfactory for various reasons. It is important to note that these attempts may bring real improvement, or may simply generate more numbers and graphs.
Altmetrics, like established scholarly metrics, measure the activity surrounding a particular scholarly work which is in turn being taken as an indication of the report's scholarly significance. In that respect, it should not be assumed that altmetrics show an altogether different or “better” picture than that which is revealed through other scholarly metrics. Altmetrics are merely seeking to provide a more complete version of that picture.
Concerns have also been raised about the manipulation of these metrics. A paper published in December of 2012, linked below, examined Google Scholar's services in particular and concluded that it was quite easy to atifically inflate a paper's scores as determined by Google Scholar's metrics. For further reading on these topics, follow the links below:
Several tools are being developed to help you measure the influence of your scholarly work and tell your impact story:
Interested in using these products? Suggest a tool for subscription to your subject librarian or fill out the online form.
