Altmetrics is a new measurement for the impact of scholarly content, based on how far and wide it travels through the social web, social bookmarking and collaboration tools. This presentation is a contribution to the continuing professional development (CPD) programme at Rhodes University Library, Grahamstown, South Africa.

1. Rhodes Library
Continuing Professional Development Programme
1 August 2013
Eileen Shepherd

2. 9/9/2014
Who said this?
“Measure what can be
measured, and make
measurable what cannot
be measured.”

3. 9/9/2014

4. A new measurement for the
impact of scholarly content,
based on how far and wide it
travels through the social web,
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social bookmarking and
collaboration tools.

5. Altmetric collects article
level metrics and the
online conversations
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around research

6. 9/9/2014

7. 9/9/2014

8. 9/9/2014

9. *measure the impact of individual articles, not just
journals (as in Impact Factors)
*A critical part of the library's job is helping the
research faculty "understand and be able to measure
the impact of their works… and since much of their
work takes place online now, and not just in the cited
periodical literature, there are lots of new ways to
measure their impact.“ (Mike Buschman of Plum Analytics)
*ecosystem of research dissemination channels is
becoming more broad and diverse
*desire in the scientific community to get a more
granular breakdown of an article's performance using
article level metrics.
9/9/2014

10. *Researchers are increasingly discussing papers
online on social media sites, rather than on
publisher's sites.
*traditional method of counting citations to measure
impact misses much, not least the impact on wider
society
*allows authors & publishers to see what people are
saying about a scholarly paper & can tell them how
much attention a paper is receiving relative to their
peers.
*researchers, funders and institutions are increasingly
concerned about the impact of their work and returns
9/9/2014
on their investments.

11. *Researchers are increasingly discussing papers
online on social media sites, rather than on
publisher's sites.
*traditional method of counting citations to measure
impact misses much, not least the impact on wider
society
*allows authors & publishers to see what people are
saying about a scholarly paper & can tell them how
much attention a paper is receiving relative to their
peers.
*researchers, funders and institutions are increasingly
concerned about the impact of their work and returns
9/9/2014
on their investments.

12. *Librarians and administrators say altmetrics
can help provide a more nuanced view of how
scholarship lives in the wider world. "It's not
just that we want to see whether somebody's
science paper is picked up on Twitter," says
Lisa J. Graumlich, dean of the College of the
Environment at the University of Washington. "I
think we'll see these tools evolve so that we'll
be tracking the impact of research in a much
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deeper way."

13. *by tracking, collecting and measuring large
amounts of data collected from all of the places
where people talk about research online
*collects article level metrics and the online
conversations around research on behalf of
publishers, institutions and funders, combining
a selection of online indicators (both scholarly
and non-scholarly) to give a measurement of
digital impact and reach.
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14. *
aggregate impacts from articles, datasets, blog posts, etc.
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tweet-tracking service
free online software repository
article metrics
article metrics
citations
citations

15. • Using the Altmetric API - If you're affiliated with a non-profit
organisation or want to use the data in a research
project, Altmetrics can grant you a free license for non-commercial
use. The free non-commercial license will
allow you to fetch basic altmetrics data about articles,
which can be used in research or for your own apps and
mashups. All they ask is that you give Altmetric
attribution somewhere.
• Altmetric offers free services for individual researchers.
• The Altmetric Bookmarklet - Instantly get article level
metrics for any recent paper, for free
• Finalist for the ALPSP Best New Journal and Publishing
Innovation Awards
9/9/2014

16. • Madness or sadness? Local concepts of mental
illness in four conflict-affected African
communities
• The role of gaping behaviour in habitat
partitioning between coexisting intertidal
mussels
• The African coelacanth genome provides
insights into tetrapod evolution
• Race and the anxieties of cultural obscurity:
Meditations on blackness in South African
performance and video art
9/9/2014

17. 9/9/2014

18. (non-profit organisation) more
focused on publishers than
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researchers

19. *problematic area in terms of getting good
data
*most of the citation databases are still
closed
*Google Scholar and ISI do not allow
ImpactStory to display their citation
counts at all
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20. Commercial operation
PlumX, is being used to collect data
(usage, captures, mentions, social media,
citations) in order to generate reports on
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publication activity in support of
research evaluation.
2 flagship clients: The Smithsonian and the University
of Pittsburgh.

21. Recent article in CHE
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22. 9/9/2014
“…If an article has been
downloaded (viewed, etc.) 400
times, what can be gleaned from
that "statistic"? That the article has
been downloaded (viewed, etc.) 400
times. Beyond that, everything else
is conjecture, if not simply wishful
thinking…” (a comment on previous
article)

23. *“…it might not mean anything that a paper was
viewed 400 times, but if you look beneath the
surface and see that those 400 views came
from the funding organizations relevant to the
author and other labs working on related
problems, then perhaps it does mean
something. 400 views from search engine
indexers might mean less, but in reality you'll
get a mix and patterns will begin to emerge…”
(reply to previous comment)
9/9/2014

24. *“The real consequential metric is the sum of
money one brings in to the university” (cynic!)
*“Altmetrics is designed as a survival tool in a
vanishing approval space”
*“Meaningless metrics are meaningless.”
*"altmetrics" or whatever, without specific
context, without particulars, are, at best, just
data left up to interpretation or, possibly,
meaningless.
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25. *[altmetrics are]… “only as good as the data
sources they draw on. And those data sources
are a motley crew of open and closed, public
and private”
*“See the limitations and take it all with a grain
of salt” ( from Impact Story - how shouldn’t it
be used?
9/9/2014

26. from their faqs
what do these numbers actually mean?
“The short answer is: probably something
useful, but we’re not sure what. We believe
that dismissing the metrics as “buzz” is short-sited:
surely people bookmark and download
things for a reason. The long answer, as well
as a lot more speculation on the long-term
significance of tools like ImpactStory, can be
found in the nascent scholarly literature on
“altmetrics.”
9/9/2014

27. has just been awarded $500,000 for software development by
the Sloan Foundation.
They must be doing something right!
Over the next two years, the funds will “support the scaling and
further development to sustainability of ImpactStory, a nonprofit
open altmetrics platform that helps scholars evaluate, sort,
consume, and reward web-native products.”
http://www.slideshare.net/SarahG_SS/using-impactstory-an-introduction
Postdoc research associate with Duke University &
Univ of British Columbia
PhD student studying info science information science at the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
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28. “The first step, and sometimes a big
one, is to make scholars aware that
there is a world of metrics beyond
citations and impact factors. Even
scholars who are active online aren't
always aware "that the impact of
their work in those new forums can
be measured,"
Mr. Deliyannides (founder of ImpactStory)
http://chronicle.com/article/New-Metrics-Providers-
Help/139555/
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29. Starting to assess the broader
impact of your published work
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30. *Article level metrics: here are the basics
*Riding the crest of the altmetrics wave: How
librarians can help prepare faculty for the next
generation of research impact metrics
*Rise of 'Altmetrics' Revives Questions About
How to Measure Impact of Research
*New Metrics Providers Help Keep Libraries in
the Research-Tracking Game (Plum Analytics)
9/9/2014

31. *Altmetrics: What, Why and Where? Special issue of
Asis&t Bulletin,(April/May 2013)
* Ask Not What Altmetrics Can Do for You, But What
Altmetrics Can Do for Developing Countries
*Metrics 2.0: who will be the ‘Google of altmetrics’?
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*From bibliometrics to altmetrics: a changing
landscape

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