Altmetrics – an alternative to traditional research indicators?

Jens Peter AndersenMLISc, PhD

Aalborg University Hospital

Citations Journal impact

Classical impact

Journals

• Citations• ”Impact”

Internet

• Twitter• Facebook

Usage

• Mendeley• CiteULike

News media

• Newspaper

• Television

Multidimensional impact

Research

Impact

Alternative metrics◦ Not JUST citations

Usage (downloads, readership) Dissemination (Tweets, shares, likes, reddit,

blogs, youtube, newspaper etc.)

What are altmetrics?

Communication between researchers◦ Research publications◦ Citations

Scholarly communication 1

From researcher to:◦ Researcher◦ Society◦ Media◦ Patients◦ Politicians◦ Etc.

Scholarly communication 2

”Societal impact” – broader, more diffuse than ”scholarly impact”

Distinction between impacts is central to altmetrics

A new impact

Altmetric.com (free librarian account) ImpactStory (free user access, uses Orcid) F1000 (Expert recommendations) Mendeley (Readership) PLoS (demo of altmetric.com, ALM)

Tools

Altmetric/PLoS

Altmetric/PLoS

Altmetric/PLoS

Altmetric/PLoS

ImpactStory

Mendeley

How do you count downloads? Is a tweet always a good thing? How sure are we of e.g. ”members of the

public”?

Data quality

Different types of tweets?◦ Different degrees of impact?

What does a download mean? What does it mean to be a ”reader”?

Theoretical issues 1

References can (probably) be aggregated to citations, especially for large units (macro-analysis)

Is this transferable to altmetrics?

Theoretical issues 2

Large amounts of data available◦ Potential for macroscopic analyses

Usage of altmetrics is primarily local◦ Micro- or mesoscopic analyses

Status

Aggregates of altmetrics data◦ University analyses etc.◦ Potential for indicators

From micro to macro

Paul Wouters distinguishes between:◦ Theories of citations, references, indicators

Is there an equivalent approach to usage and social data?◦ How can we move from individual tweets to

theories of their meaning? Especially the meaning of multiple tweets.

◦ How about readership and downloads?◦ What type of meaningful indicators could be

constructed from this?

A theory of altmetrics?