Presentation titled "Altmetrics and the Changing Societal Needs of Research Communications at R&D Centres in an Emerging Country: A Case Study of India", presented in the 2nd Altmetrics Conference Session: Altmetrics as indicators of economic and social impact On 7th October 2015, at Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

1. Anup Kumar Das
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
http://anupkumardas.blogspot.in
Altmetrics and the Changing Societal Needs of Research
Communications at R&D Centres in an Emerging Country: A
Case Study of India
2AM: 2nd Altmetrics Conference
Session: Altmetrics as Indicators of Economic and Social Impact
Presented on 7th October 2015, at Amsterdam

2. Challenges
• Altmetrics Score or Citation Count are not given priority in impact
measurement or research evaluation in most of the Indian
universities/ research institutions.
• Research Funders in India don’t have appropriate strategy for
considering Altmetrics Score in impact measurement or research
evaluation or funding decision.
• University Grants Commission (UGC), apex body in University
System in India, introduced Academic Performance Indicators (APIs)
in 2010 for career advancement/ promotion.
• However, APIs do not seek an Altmetrics Score or a Citation Count
for a published work.
• This demoralizes researchers/ faculty members having high
Altmetrics Score or a Citation Counts.
• Few Indian Journals have taken appropriate initiative to derive
Altmetric score from the journal website.

3. Exemplary Initiative for Improving Altmetric Score
• Only few research departments or centres in Indian universities have
social media presence.
• Few of them maintain an active email-based discussion forum or
listserv for promoting scholarship and academic networking.
• CSSP (Centre for Studies in Science Policy @Jawaharlal Nehru
University) has taken exemplary initiative to promote published works
emanated from the Centre.
• CSSP gets article alerts from the Google Scholar Alerts.
• Then CSSP shares information on every published work to social media
channels, including:
– Twitter
– Facebook
– Google+
– Email-based Discussion Forum
– Research Blog
– CSSP Website
– Posts to Subject-Specific Multiple FB Groups and Listservs

4. Exemplary Initiative for Improving Altmetric Score
• CSSP’s Research Students also get training on how to create and
maintain their academic profiles on
– Academia.edu
– ResearchGate.net
– Linkedin.com
– Google Scholar profile
– Personal Blogs
– Slideshare.net
– Orcid.org
• Many of the Research Students maintain their academic profiles on
these sites.
• Their academic profiles include List of Published Papers, Bibliographic
Details and Hyperlinks to Full-text Contents.

5. Outreaching to Global Audience: Research Blog
http://cssp-jnu.blogspot.in

6. Outreaching to Global Audience: Twitter
@IndiaSTS

7. Outreaching to Global Audience: Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/csspjnu

8. Outreaching to STS Researchers in India:
Email-Based Discussion Forum
cssp-forum@googlegroups.com

9. Outreaching to Global Audience: Audio Archive
http://www.mixcloud.com/cssp_jnu/

10. Open Access Repositories in Indian Universities
Total No. of Universities in the Country as on 03.09.2015 (University
Grants Commission): 733
Universities Total No.
State Universities 336
Deemed to be Universities 127
Central Universities 46
Private Universities 224
• Institutional Repositories of Indian Universities
• 70 OA Repositories from India are recorded in OpenDOAR
– About 40+ Repositories from Indian Universities
– About 5.5% Indian Universities Have OA Repositories

11. Notable OA Initiatives
• Shodhganga [Indian ETD Repository @ INFLIBNET]
• A Repository for Theses and Dissertations from Indian Universities
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in
• 44441 theses and dissertations uploaded as on 05-10-2015
• Top 5 Contributing Universities
– Jawaharlal Nehru University [4450+]
– Gujarat University [2924+]
– Anna University [2836+]
– Mahatma Gandhi University [2080+]
– Bundelkhand University [1690+]
• Shodhgangotri [Research in Progress @ INFLIBNET]
• A Repository for Doctoral Research in Progress from Indian
Universities http://shodhgangotri.inflibnet.ac.in

12. Shodhganga
[Indian ETD Repository @ INFLIBNET]

13. Open Access Harvestor and Central Platform

14. IR@DST
http://dst.sciencecentral.in
• Open Access Institutional Repository from Department of Science
and Technology (DST). [Non-Functional as on 05-10-15]

15. IR@DBT
http://dbt.sciencecentral.in
• Open Access Institutional Repository from Department of
Biotechnology (DBT). [Non-Functional as on 05-10-15]

16. Information and Media Literacy Toolkit for Altmetrics
• UNESCO Open Access Curricula
for Researchers
Module 4: Research Evaluation
Metrics
– UNIT 1: Introduction to
Research Evaluation Metrics
and Related Indicators
– UNIT 2: Innovations in
Measuring Science and
Scholarship
– UNIT 3: Article and Author
Level Measurements
– UNIT 4: Online Citation and
Reference Management Tools

17. Conclusion
• Lack of research communications strategies in Indian universities.
• Published literatures remain unnoticed due to non-availability of
dedicated and specialised research communicators in academic
departments.
• Academic staff members such as Documentation Officers, Research
Officers and Information Scientists can be engaged as departmental
Research Communicators and Communications Strategists for
promoting published research to worldwide research communities.
• Exemplary initiatives can be up-scaled and implemented across the
universities and research institutions in India.
• Apex bodies, such as UGC, DST, DBT and CSIR, need to be proactive
in promoting Altmetric and other modern impact measurement
methods.

18. References
• Das, Anup Kumar (2015). Research Evaluation Metrics [Open Access for
Researchers, 4]. Paris: UNESCO, ISBN: 9789231000829.
• Das, Anup Kumar & Mishra, Sanjaya (2014). Genesis of Altmetrics or
Article-level Metrics for Measuring Efficacy of Scholarly
Communications: Current Perspectives. Journal of Scientometric
Research, 3(2): 82-92.
• Das, D. N., & Chattopadhyay, S. (2014). Academic Performance
Indicators: Straitjacketing Higher Education. Economic & Political
Weekly, 49(50), 68-71.
• Sujatha, V. (2015). The Academic Performance Indicators Regime and
Its Follies. Economic & Political Weekly, 50(5), 23-25.
• UGC (2010). Proposed Scores for Academic Performance Indicators
(APIs) in Recruitments and Career Advancement Scheme (CAS)
Promotions of University / College Teachers.

19. Thank you for your kind attention.
http://anupkumardas.blogspot.in