This document provides an overview of alternative metrics and tools for tracking research impact and visibility. It discusses various altmetric data sources like PlumX, Impact Story and Altmetric.com that can track usage, captures and mentions of research articles. It also covers academic social networks like Mendeley, ResearchGate and Academia.edu that can help increase visibility. Open access and tools like Publish or Perish for analyzing Google Scholar data are also summarized. The document aims to help researchers improve their research visibility and understand their digital footprint through alternative metrics.

1. “Maximising your Communication
Impact – Making Altmetrics work for
you”
Ciaran Quinn
Research Support Librarian
Maynooth University

2. Topics
• Improving your Research Visibility & tracking your impact
• Alternative Metrics/ All Metrics
▫ PlumX (EBSCO)
▫ Impact Story (& Orcid)
▫ Altmetrics.com (ProQuest & Scopus)
▫ Google Scholar Metrics (Publish Or Perish)
▫ Open Access
• Academic Social Networking
▫ Mendeley (Elsevier)(9 million)
▫ Research Gate (9 million academics but more active & more
papers)(Berlin based, Investors + Microsoft)
▫ Academia.edu (34 million academics, San Francisco)
▫ Social Science Research Network (SSRN )(Elsevier)

3. Context !
1.8 million articles published each year, in about
28,000 journals
• http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-
news/half-academic-studies-are-never-read-
more-three-people-180950222/?no-ist

4. Citation Rates
(based on WOS Data)
• Dahlia Remler "12 percent of medicine articles
are not cited, compared to about 82 percent (!)
for the humanities. It’s 27 percent for natural
sciences and 32 percent for social sciences (cite)“
• http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/04/h
ow-few-papers-ever-get-cited-its-bad-but-not-
that-bad/
• http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.5
250.pdf

5. Natures Top 100
(WOS Data Oct 2014)
• http://www.nature.com/news/the-top-100-papers-1.16224
• Experimental Methods papers
▫ Rank: 1 Citations: 305,148
▫ Protein measurement with the folin phenol reagent.
▫ Lowry, O. H., Rosebrough, N. J., Farr, A. L. & Randall, R. J.
▫ J. Biol. Chem. 193, 265–275 (1951).
• Software & Databases
• Foundational discoveries
▫ However many so well known not cited !
 E.g.Einstein’s special theory of relativity !
• Time (Older papers !)

6. Improving your Research Visibility
• Traditional:
▫ Publish in High Impact Journals
▫ Gold Open Access
▫ Check your Author Identity/Disambiguation
▫ Link Research Question/Title/Keywords
 Be findable
▫ Co Authors/Collaborate
▫ Advertise & Disseminate

7. Advertising & Disseminating
Reaching a Wider Audience
• University RIS System: Keep it updated !
▫ http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/126217/publications
• Open Access/Self Archive
▫ Institutional Repositories http://rian.ie/ (Irish)
▫ Open Access Journals https://doaj.org/
▫ Subject Repositories http://www.opendoar.org/find.php
 Increase readership & citations
• General Social Media
▫ LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook/Emails
▫ Include links to your works unique identifier in the main body of the post
 DOI, ArXiv ID, PubMed
• Document Publishing
▫ Figshare (Data) , GitHub (Source Code) Slideshare (Presentations), Scribd (Publishing)
▫ PrePrints (arXiv, bioRxiv, FigShare)
• Discussion Lists/Online Forum
▫ Do a lay summary of your work
• Blogging: (Blogger, Wordpress) or Guest Blogging
• Be Findable: Descriptive Title, Abstract, Keywords,
▫ Think of Humans & Machines looking for your work !

8. Can I track & understand my Digital
Footprint/Social Reach !
• Usage (downloads, views)
• Capturing (Saves, Bookmarks)
• Mentions (Comments)
• Social Media (Tweet)
• Citations (Citation/Patent Indexes)
▫ PLos, Scopus, PubMed
• There are tools that can look at this
▫ Possible alternative measures for Research
Impact/Showcase your Research
▫ Opportunity to Track and Engage with your Audience
▫ Follow the conversation around your research

9. Altmetrics
http://libguides.ucd.ie/bibliometrics/altmetrics
• altmetrics is the creation and study of new
metrics based on the Social Web for analyzing,
and informing scholarship.
▫ J. Priem, D. Taraborelli, P. Groth, C. Neylon
(2010), Altmetrics: A manifesto, 26 October 2010.
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto
 Jason Priem: Co Founder Impact Story
• A beginner's guide to Altmetrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6XawJ7-880

10. Value?
• Complement traditional metrics
• Societal Impact
▫ (Interaction with Public, Govt, Policy,other
Researchers)
• Speed (attention to research outputs)
• Connecting with other Researchers
• Linked to Open Access
• Making a case for funding
• Improve visibility of Non Western Research !

11. However
• Measuring online attention around an article is not
a measure of quality
• Recent
• Not Normalised
• Not great at tracking information
▫ (need stable identifiers e.g. DOI’s)
• Definition: What are they?
• Gaming !
▫ http://www.dcscience.net/2014/01/16/why-you-
should-ignore-altmetrics-and-other-bibliometric-
nightmares/

12. https://www.altmetric.com/top100/2015/#explore

14. Altmetric Integrations
• Summon (ProQuest)
▫ Library Search
• Scopus (Elsevier)

15. ProQuest's Summon
(Library Search) & Altmetrics

16. Summon Altmetrics Integration

19. Altmetrics Software
• Impact Story
• PlumX (€)
• Altmetrics.com (€)
• Publish Or Perish
• Google Scholar Citations

20. Impact Story
Re-emerged recently as a free resource with Orcid !
http://v1.impactstory.org/CarlBoettiger

21. Orcid
http://orcid.org/

23. PlumX Sources
(Citations inc: Scopus, PubMed & Patents)

24. PlumX Case Study
University of Pittsburgh
https://plu.mx/pitt/g/

26. Maynooth PlumX Trial

28. Sorted by Usage

29. Researcher Profile

30. Sorted by Usage

31. Export Data Option

32. Analytics
Orange = Citations
Purple=Captures
Blue=Social Media
Green=Usage

33. Publish or Perish

34. Publish or Perish
(Free Download Tool)
• Google Scholar Data Freely available
• Often show much higher levels of citations than WOS or Scopus
 WOS & Scopus miss 60% of Google S but Google misses 40% of theirs
(Harzing)
 Google Scholar now linked into WOS citations
• Caveats:
▫ Includes some non scholarly citations
▫ Uneven coverage (better Humanities, Social Science, Engineering)
▫ Weaker on older publication’s
▫ Duplications (due to Automatic Processing)
• http://www.harzing.com/publications/white-papers/google-
scholar-a-new-data-source-for-citation-analysis

35. Exploring Difference
• Comparing:
▫ Publish or Perish
▫ Google Scholar Citations
▫ Scopus
▫ Web of Science
• Case Study:
▫ Dr Dave Goulson, Sussex University
 An example of how to get it right !
 Metrics & Academic Social Networks

36. Publish or Perish
(H Index: 55)(242 Docs)

37. Google Scholar Citations
(310 Docs) (H Index 43 (since 2011, 59 All)

38. Scopus
(240 Docs) (H Index 46)

39. Web of Science
(256)(H Index 43)

40. Orcid
(444 ?)
Double Counting two ID’s?

41. Dave Goulson
University Page

42. Goulson’s Lab
(222 publications)

43. Sussex Research Online
https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/

44. Open Access
• Open Access Journals
• Subject Repositories
• Institutional Repositories
▫ Directory of Open Access Journals
https://www.openaire.eu/
▫ Open Aire
▫ https://www.openaire.eu/
▫ Open DOAR (Directory Open Access Repositories)
http://www.opendoar.org/index.html
▫ RIAN (Irish Research)
▫ http://rian.ie/
▫ ArXiv.org
 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative
Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics (Cornell)

45. Open Access
• https://www.openaire.eu/oa-overview

46. Downloads

47. Academic Social Networking
▫ Mendeley
 (Elsevier)(9 million)
▫ Research Gate
 (9 million academics but more active & more papers
than Academia.edu)(Berlin based, Investors +
Microsoft)
▫ Academia.edu
 (34 million academics, San Francisco)
▫ Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
 (Elsevier)

48. Academic Social Networking
• Sharing your papers and following Research
• Increase Citations?
• Source of metrics (Reads, Citations)
• Networking/Collaboration Potential
• Some do Reference Management, Citations & Bibliographies (Zotero,
Mendeley)
• Caveats:
 Not Open Access (Google can’t access)
 Metrics from data in Network only (Quality?)
 Not all Full Text
 Copyright Issues (Check with your Publisher or Sherpa Romeo Website)
• https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/do-academic-social-
networks-share-academics-interests

49. Research Gate
https://www.researchgate.net/home

50. Research Gate

51. Mendeley
https://www.mendeley.com/

53. Mendeley Home Page

58. SSRN Top Papers

59. SSRN
Authors & Organisations

60. More Information
http://myri.conul.ie/

61. Contact:
ciaran.quinn@nuim.ie
• http://ciarnthelibrarian.blogspot.ie/

62. Thanks !