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
Traditional
- Article
- Chapter
- Books
Times Cited
Impact Factor + Rank
H-index

From metrics to altmetrics
Measures
Traditional New
Research
Products
Traditional
- Article
- Chapter
- Books
Times Cited
Impact Factor +
Rank
H-index
Page Views
Downloads

From metrics to altmetrics
Measures
Traditional New
Research
Products
Traditional
- Article
- Chapter
- Books
Times Cited
Impact
Factor +
Rank
H-index
Page Views
New
- 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