Altmetrics and the publisher

I’m Mike Taylor, I’m a research specialist and I work for Elsevier Labs

http://labs.elsevier.com

What is Altmetrics?

• Article-level metrics• It is the collection, the counting and

interpretation of non-formal citation of scholarly documents

• And what does non-formal citation mean?• It’s when you save a work in Mendeley or

Zotero or Figshare or you bookmark it in Del.icio.us or share it in Facebook or Twitter

• Not “talking about work” but “referencing it”Next up – obligatory slide about Elsevier

Obligatory slide about what Elsevier is doing

• Quite a lot!• Altmetric.com tool has been on Scopus as a

mandatory tool for nearly a year• Lots of articles are appearing on Elsevier

websites (www.elsevierconnect.com, www.researchtrends.com)

• The publishing units have plans and projects• And there’s my work

Next up – what altmetrics says about altmetrics

What do people say about Altmetrics?

• “The speed of altmetrics presents the opportunity to create real-time recommendation and collaborative filtering systems”

• “they’re great for measuring impact in [the] diverse scholarly ecosystem”

• “Altmetrics expand our view of what impact looks like”

• All from altmetrics.org/manifestoNext up – what curmudgeonly professors say about altmetrics

What do people say about Altmetrics?

• Professor David Calquhoun of UCL: “Altmetrics are cheap gimmickry that encourage gaming the system, ie dishonesty. I do wish that kids with computers would get off the backs of real scientists.”

Next up – Altmetric.com

What does altmetric.com look like?

• Examples of ImpactStory and Altmetric.com

Next up – Impact Story

What does ImpactStory.org look like?

• Examples of Im

• Also Plum Analytics and various other tools• http://altmetrics.org/tools/

Next up – why you don’t have to do anything!

What you have to do!

• Great news!• You don’t have to do anything!• Other people will do it for you, whether you

like it or not!• But getting altmetric.com or ImpactStory on

your website is easy, so technical integration is a doddle

Next up – how ANYONE can view altmetrics!

American Journal of Hypertension

• 10.1093/ajh/hps090 • 10.1093/ajh/hps088• 10.1093/ajh/hps097 • 10.1093/ajh/hps089• 10.1093/ajh/hpt008 • 10.1093/ajh/hps100• 10.1093/ajh/hpt010 • 10.1093/ajh/hpt028• 10.1093/ajh/hpt041• 10.1093/ajh/hpt042• 10.1093/ajh/hps098 • 10.1093/ajh/hps065• 10.1093/ajh/hps119 • 10.1093/ajh/hpt009 • 10.1093/ajh/hps072 • 10.1093/ajh/hps092• 10.1093/ajh/hps099 • 10.1093/ajh/hps095 • 10.1093/ajh/hps096

Journal of the American Society of Hypertension

10.1016/S1933-1711(13)00022-310.1016/j.jash.2013.01.00410.1016/j.jash.2013.01.00310.1016/j.jash.2013.01.006, 10.1016/j.jash.2013.01.00110.1016/j.jash.2012.12.00810.1016/j.jash.2012.12.00610.1016/j.jash.2012.12.00310.1016/j.jash.2013.01.00210.1016/j.jash.2012.12.00710.1016/S1933-1711(13)00023-510.1016/j.jash.2013.01.007

10.1038/495425a10.1038/495426a10.1038/495430a10.1038/495433a

Next up – why does this matter?

Why you should do more

• What difference will Open Access use to your non-specialist usage?

• Will funders require more social impact statements?

• Is Open Access more than just “sticking a PDF up on a website”?

Next up – the anatomy of a story

The anatomy of a story

• “The £5 spit test for cancer”• Front page news• Wide-spread coverage• Nature moved mountains to

make it accessible• Massive social impact potential• A really big deal

Altmetric.com

ImpactStory http://www.impactstory.org/collection/dnwpb3

Disappointment? The power of PR?

0100200300400500600700800900

Saved (eg, Mendeley, Citeulike, Delicious)Discussed (ie, Twitter via Topsy Twitter API)

Seeing (or not) the bigger picture

• 300+ comments on The Guardian

• Dozens of news stories• 100 comments on the

Daily Mail• Social Media buzz

Next up – “Once upon a time…”

Current state of altmetrics is v0.1

• Link-based• Counting• Limited interpretation, because numbers

aren’t much• Founded in 2010• Didn’t make much impact until 2012

Next up – kicking up a gear

V0.2, 0.5 are much more interesting

• Crawling• Similiarity-based• Temporal analysis• Semantic analysis

Next up - Complex stuff with known solutions

And this is an easy thing to do

• Finding ‘similar stories’ with a ‘similar fingerprint’ in a ‘similar timescale’ is a known problem

• Dozens of start-ups do this• Links are easy and cheap, and are a great

place to start

Next up – but these are just meaningless numbers… right?

But even so… it’s just a bag of numbers

• How do different professions behave?• What’s the fingerprint of non-scholarly

behaviour?• How is it changing over time?• When will the numbers make real-time

recommendations a possibility?• Is it easier to game than JIF?

What work needs to be done?

• Semantics• Temporal analysis• Surveys of real-life behaviour

Next up – the end

The end: a history and future of scholarly impact

• Is only the beginning• After citation • After downloads and page views • After scholarly interest • After mass media • After non-scholarly interest • Tracking linguistic terms, semantic linking,

memes analysis: semantometrics