Presentation of preliminary altmetrics research results at the 2015 joint conference of the Kansas Library Association and the Missouri Library Association

1. Altmetrics and
their Influence
on Collection
Development
Sarah Sutton
Rachel Miles
Stacy Konkiel
Michael Levine-Clark

2. Outline
• What are altmetrics?
• Introduction to our research study
• Study Results:
–Subject liaison duties
–Use of metrics for collection development
• Questions

3. Alternative Metrics, or
Altmetrics: What are they?
•Altmetrics use a varied number of methods for measuring
scholarly impact including:
•Web-based references
•Article views/downloads
•Mentions in the news and on social media (Sutton, 2014).
– Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Mainstream media & forums.
– Evidence for LinkedIn & Pinterest, Q&A sites insufficient (Thelwall
et al, 2013).
• Social bookmarking services & social reference managers, like
Mendeley.
•Examples of shared media:
•Videos
•Conference presentations
•Data sets
•Infographics
•Source code
Image courtesy of altmetrics.org
Image courtesy of theguardian.com

4. Bibliometrics vs. Altmetrics
• Journal Impact Factor
(JIF)
– Average # of Citations to
Articles Published in a
Journal
– Academic articles and
reviews within a journal
– Limitation: Impact
measured within a single
field of study
Image courtesy of sciencetechblog.com

5. Bibliometrics vs. Almetrics
• H-index
– Individual Researcher’s # of Articles Published to the # of Citations
– Ex of sources: Web of Science, Google Scholar Metrics, Microsoft Academic
Search
• Criticisms
–Easily manipulated
–Single field of study
–Incapable of measuring online impact
Example of an h-index. Image courtesy of Microsoft Academic Search.

6. Bibliometrics vs. Altmetrics
• Citation counts
– Google Scholar and many digital libraries
• Sort search matches by most highly cited articles.
• Offer other faceted search options, such as “most recent” or a specific year/range.
– Citations accrue over months and years, and therefore are not an
indication of recent research impact.
– Researchers are interested in important and current research in their
fields (Thelwall et al., 2013).
Image courtesy of scholar.google.com

7. Advantages of Measuring
Online Impact
• Impact measured more rapidly than citation counts
• Measures immediate impact of research & current trends
– Social media mentions→directly after being published, or even before
• Supports Open Access (OA) Initiatives
– Encourages sharing research across news media platforms via social media and
communicating research to the general public.
– Most research measured by altmetrics uses nontechnical language
– Could measure societal impact of research (Thelwall et al., 2013).
Image courtesy of plos.org/open-access

8. Advantages of Measuring
Online Impact
• Rather than predicting future
citations, altmetrics likely capture a
different and unique “aspect of
research visibility and impact”
(Thelwall et al., 2013).
– Bornmann (2015) found that the more
tags an article had in the F1000Prime,
the more likely the articles were to be
used for instruction, rather than as
scholarly citations.
• Possible indicator of translating complicated
research into unambiguous information for the
public’s use and in the classroom (Bornmann,
2015).
Image courtesy of humancapitalist.com

9. Advantages of Measuring
Online Impact
• Supports faculty in understanding
the impact of their research.
• Assists faculty in pursuing
tenure or promotion.
• Assists evaluation committees
and administrators in measuring
research and scholarly and
creative achievements for tenure.
Image courtesy of Texas Tech University

10. Disadvantages and controversies
surrounding altmetrics
• Gaming altmetrics: the potential to manipulate
the popularity of an article (Roemer & Borchardt,
2015).
–Can cause damage to the purpose and accuracy
of altmetrics.
–Publishers can provide funding to draw attention to
articles.
• Lacks standardization (Roemer & Borchardt, 2015).
– NISO’s Altmetrics Assessment Initiative
• Estimating future citations not a reality yet.
– Correlations between citations and altmetrics
scores is still weak, (Barnes, 2015).
• However, this may not be the ultimate purpose of
altmetrics.
Image courtesy of jansimon.com

11. Preliminary Data:
Subject/Liaison Librarians
• 210 liaison librarians
• 575 liaison areas identified
• Most liaison librarians responsible for multiple liaison
areas.
• Some liaison librarians mentioned liaison areas in
multiple disciplines, (e.g. humanities, engineering, and
life sciences.)
• However, most liaison librarians were responsible for
liaison areas in the same or similar disciplines.
– Ex: One survey participant was responsible for the liaison

12. The Survey
Purposes:
– Assess academic librarians’ current usage of
research metrics in the course of their work
– Gather information about how librarians who
conduct their own research or read others’
research articles use such metrics

13. The Survey
• Population:
–13,000 academic librarians at 4 year college or
university
• Respondents
–709 librarians
–~ 5% response rate

14. The Survey: What We Asked
• Title and job duties
• Tenure status
• Familiarity with evaluative research metrics (JIF,
usage, altmetrics)
• Uses for evaluative research metrics (JIF, usage,
altmetrics)
–for professional duties
–when evaluating their own scholarly work

15. The Survey: Preliminary Results
• Title: Liaison Librarian/Subject Specialist
• Job duties: Collection Development
• Familiarity with
–Journal Impact Factors
–Citation Counts, Usage Metrics, Altmetrics
• Use of metrics for collection development
–Journal Impact Factors

16. Percentage of Liaison Areas Identified

17. Percentage of Liaison Areas Identified in the Hard
Sciences
Health Sciences: 74 mentions:
● Medicine
● Veterinary Science
● Dentistry
● Dietics
● Food Science
● Surgery
● Human Sciences
● Nursing
● +36 Others!
Applied Sciences, 47 mentions:
● Engineering (30)
● Architecture (9)
● Agronomy (6)
● Other (3)
Formal Sciences, 37 mentions:
● Mathematics (17)
● Computer Science (13)
● Statistics (7)
Physical Sciences, 39 mentions:
● Chemistry (17)
● Biochemistry (7)
● Physics (13)
● Physical Sciences, General (2)
Life Sciences, 27 mentions:
● Biology (21)
● Plant Science (3)
● Other (2)
Earth & Space Sci., 26 mentions:
● Earth & Environ. Sci. (19)
● Astronomy & Astrophysics (7)
Science, unspecified, 3 mentions

18. Percentage of Liaison Areas Identified in the Humanities
Cultural and Gender studies, with
53 mentions, had 30 different
types of studies!
Overall, the humanities had 174
mentions, or 30 percent of all
mentions.

19. Percentage of Liaison Areas Identified in the
Social Sciences
Social sciences had the fewest
mentions in the survey, with 60
mentions, or 30 percent.
Political science had the most
mentions, at 19 mentions, and
also included world politics,
global/international studies,
global affairs, European Union
studies, and peace studies.

20. Percentage of Liaison Areas Identified in the
Professions
Professional areas had 89
mentions, or 16 percent.
Business had the most
mentions but also included
economics, finance,
management, and marketing.

22. More about our respondents
• Almost all (97.3%) work full time in academic libraries at a 4
year college or university.
• Most (62.3%) have worked as a librarian for 11 or more years
and almost half of those (49.1%) have been working as a
librarian for more than 21 years.
• More than 50% have collection development duties.

23. Those with Collection Development
Responsibilities' Familiarity with Metrics

24. All Respondents' Familiarity with Metrics

25. Have you ever used journal impact factors for any of
the following purposes?

26. How often do you evaluate materials using the following
indicators of research impact in the context of your
collection

27. What we still want to know...
• Are there variances in use of altmetrics for
collection development between liaison areas?
• Are there variances in FAMILIARITY WITH altmetrics between
librarians with duties other than collection development (e.g.
reference, instruction, assessment, scholarly
communication)?
• Are there variances in THE USE OF altmetrics between
librarians with duties other than collection development (e.g.
reference, instruction, assessment, scholarly
communication)?

28. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
CAN WE ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS FOR YOU
NOW?
LATER?
Sarah Sutton: ssutton3@emporia.edu
Rachel Miles: rmiles@emporia.edu