AltmetricsThe 18th Nordic Workshop on Bibliometrics and Research Policy 2013

Tuija SonkkilaIrma PasanenEva Tolonen

What is altmetrics?

• "Impact metrics, drawn from online sources"• "Social activity, component re-use, scholarly commentary,

scholarly activity, mass media mentions"• "Giving credit for other scholarly outputs than citations such as

datasets, software, and blog posts"• "A tool of discovery"

Article-level metrics (ALM) is altmetrics aggregated on article level

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Current status

• Increased visibility on publishers' sites and at organizational repositories

• Core producers: Impact Story, Altmetric, Plum Analytics, PLOS ALMo With an ID, gather data from several dozen online serviceso Make comparisons to other articles by percentile of a reference

set from the same year (ImpactStory) and/or the same journal (Altmetric). Only PLOS makes field normalisation via its Relative Metrics (in beta)

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Some research findings

• Moderate correlations between Mendeley readers and citation counts (eg Priem, Piwowar, Hemminger)

• Correlations between Twitter and citation counts low in biomedical papers, moderately negative among astrophysicists (Haustein et al)

• Postdocs and PhDs read more highly cited papers than professors do (Zahedi)

• F1000 recommendations not very good in predicting citations. Correlation exists, but is weak (Waltman, Costas)

• Data inconsistencies between different aggregators (Chamberlain)

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Examples of visibility

Terkko Navigator, University of Helsinki Faculty of Medicine

http://bit.ly/16d28KY

Purdue University e-Pubs

http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ijpbl/vol1/iss1/3/

University of Pittsburgh

http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/17829/

Nature

http://bit.ly/174xfsX

Carl Boettiger

http://impactstory.org/CarlBoettiger

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Aalto University examples

http://spark.rstudio.com/ttso/altm/

Smorgasbord for demonstrating various data

http://impactstory.org/user51892

Collection of <300 articles at Impact Story site

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Conclusions

Focus today? (eg Strasser)• Altmetrics as a component in the local repository• Altmetrics in researcher profiles: collect credit, pluggable to CRIS

Future? (Chamberlain)• We need improved data provenance with a trail back to the

source• One single impact score is appealing but does not put the impact

in context

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Thank you!

tuija.sonkkila at aalto.fi

irma.pasanen at aalto.fi

eva.tolonen at aalto.fi

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References

ALM Workshop 2013

http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/alm-workshop-2013/

Bornmann, Lutz: Is there currently a scientific revolution in scientometrics? JASIST, Letter to the editor (accepted for publication)

http://www.lutz-bornmann.de/icons/impactrevolution.pdf

Chamberlain, Scott: Consuming Article-Level Metrics: Observations and Lessons. Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) Summer 2013 Volume 25, no. 2, pp. 4-13

http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/11303/FE_Chamberlain_Consuming_ALMs_isq_v25no2.pdf

Glänzel, Wolfgang and Wouters, Paul: The dos and don'ts in individual-level bibliometrics. 14th ISSI Conference, Vienna, 15-18 July 2013

http://www.slideshare.net/paulwouters1/issi2013-wg-pw

Haustein, Stefanie et al: Empirical analyses of scientific papers and researchers on Twitter: Results of two studies. ALM Workshop 2013

http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/files/2013/10/Haustein.pptx

Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) Summer 2013 Volume 25, no. 2 Topic: Altmetrics

http://www.niso.org/publications/isq/2013/v25no2/

Michalek, Andrea: Alternative metrics in practice. ALM Workshop 2013

http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/files/2013/10/Michalek.pptx

Mulvany, Ian: NISO ALM standardization workshop. Partially-attended (Blog)

http://partiallyattended.com/2013/10/16/niso-alm-standardisation/

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References, cont.

Priem, Jason (2012): Altmetrics in the Wild: Using Social Media to Explore Scholarly Impact. ArXiv

http://arxiv.org/html/1203.4745v1

Priem, Jason (2013): Scholarship, Beyond the Paper. Nature 495, 437–440 (28 March 2013)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/full/495437a.html

Strasser, Carly: Universities can improve academic services through wider recognition of altmetrics and alt-products. Impact of Social Sciences (LSE blog)

http://bit.ly/19DLsta

Taylor, Mark: The many faces of altmetrics: mapping the social reach of research. ALM Workshop 2013

http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/files/2013/10/Taylor.pptx

Using Impact Story (introduction for scientists)

http://slidesha.re/GSgbtF

Waltman, Ludo and Costas, Rodrigo: F1000 recommendations as a new data source for research evaluation: A comparison with citations

http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.3875

Zahedi, Zohreh: What is the impact of the publications read by the different Mendeley users? Could they be considered as signals of future impact? ALM Workshop 2013

http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/files/2013/10/Zahedi.pptx

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Other sources

Altmetrics group in Mendeley

http://www.mendeley.com/groups/586171/altmetrics/papers/

#altmetrics hashtag in Twitter

PLOS Relative Metrics example

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/metrics/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000550;jsessionid=1699A1721267AE339795A5746FCB83FC

Twitter discussion thread on the scope of Altmetrics vs Article-level metrics

https://twitter.com/McDawg/status/366220670167814146

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altmetrics

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