1.
OA monographs metrics workshop
October 2019
14 October 2019
This photo, “Action at a distance: pamphlet in progress” is copyright (c) 2012 sanickels and made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence

2.
OA monograph reports
OA monographs metrics workshop2
2019: the year of the OA monograph report!

3.
Some thoughts about monograph metrics
OA monographs metrics workshop3
Two sides of the same coin?
“One of the overarching challenges, though, remains fact that bibliometrics are
inextricably associated with research assessment”
• Metrics for ‘assessment’ (funder or institutional VfM) and metrics for authors have certain
factors in common
• There is potential to develop both alongside each other
• There is also a need to highlight these developments to researchers

4.
Survey to authors of Open Access books
OA monographs metrics workshop4
Gathering information about authors’ and editors’ understanding of book metrics
• 28 respondents from nine countries
• Mostly authors within Arts & Humanities disciplines
• 16 (57%) have published 5 books or more
• Sofie Wennström, Gabor Schubert, Graham Stone, Jeroen Sondervan. The significant difference
in impact: An exploratory study about the meaning and value of metrics for open access
monographs. ELPUB 2019 23rd edition of the International Conference on Electronic Publishing,
Jun 2019, Marseille, France. ⟨hal-02141879⟩

5.
Survey to authors of Open Access books
OA monographs metrics workshop5
What metrics have the most value?
• Downloads scored highest and citations were ranked second
• Twitter mentions was the least valuable measure
• Mentions in the news and number of sold print books was also rather popular answers

6.
Some thoughts about monograph metrics
OA monographs metrics workshop6
What is ‘highly cited’?
• <50% did not know what would count as a highly cited book
• 68% of the respondents said 30–50 citations is considered high
• Their expectations seems to be inflated, as there is no benchmark

7.
Some thoughts about monograph metrics
OA monographs metrics workshop7
What is high impact in altmetrics?
• ”I would only regard it as ‘high impact’ if it was mentioned by respected international colleagues
or by students (if the book is a textbook). ”
• ”High impact would be on downloads and citations - Twitter mentions are just that - and not
indications of actual impact.”
• ”Many people talking about (instead of just tweeting the title), but discussing content, asking
questions, etc.”
• “Depends on what I am trying to achieve. But I am interested in the global reach of open access
and also engaging with readers outside of academia so measures of those would be helpful.”

8.
OA monograph reports
OA monographs metrics workshop8
Questions for this afternoon?
• How can we achieve minimum viable technical standards from publishers. Is there a role for
funders in stimulating this discussion?
• What might a metrics dashboard look like for the different stakeholder groups (researchers,
libraries, publishers)
• Do you have any other ideas for innovations in metrics for OA monographs to make them
interesting for researchers?
• What is Jisc’s role in supporting the development of the above?