Overview of Altmetrics

Joseph Kraus University of Denver

For the CRC Library Advisory Board, June 13, 2015

Note:

• With approval, I am going to put this online at http://www.slideshare.net/jokrausdu/overview-of-altmetrics, so you don’t have to take prodigious notes.

Altmetrics

• Today, we are going to cover:

–What, who, when, where, why, and how

Altmetrics – What?

• What is it?

Other terms

• Article-Level Metrics

• Artifact-Level Metrics

Altmetrics – Who?

• Jason Priem, Heather Piwowar (ImpactStory)

• Euan Adie, Stacy Konkiel, Sara Rouhi (Altmetric)

• Andrea Michalek and Mike Buschman (Plum Analytics)

• Martin Fenner (PLOS)

• William Gunn (Mendeley)

Altmetrics – Who?

• Other interested parties

–NISO

–Publishers

–Librarians/Information Professionals

–Readers

–Policy makers

–Research Funders

Altmetrics – When?

• Right now and into the future

• Some services include digging into past usage of older information

Altmetrics – Where?

• Any place where people care about metrics

• San Francisco - DORA

Altmetrics – Why?

• More current usage data than citations

• Recent engagement and interactions – See who is engaging with your content

– See how they are engaging with it

– See where they are marking or saving it

• Who is downloading the content?

• Where are people using that content?

Altmetrics – Why?

• Concerning social media, “there is a danger that this form of communication is gaining too high a value and that we are losing sight of key metrics of scientific value, such as citation indices.”

• From http://genomebiology.com/2014/15/7/424

Altmetrics – Why?

• Molecular biologist Buddhini Samarasinghe noted that some researchers say: “‘Ha ha, let's laugh at those silly scientists doing social media outreach when they should be writing papers!’ The K-index trivialises those of us who work hard to communicate science with the public.”

Altmetrics – Why?

• Funders want to broaden the impact

• http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07046/nsf07046.jsp

• Altmetrics can help verify that the imapct has been broadened

Altmetrics – Why?

• Publish or perish culture

• Evaluate the quality of the work, not the container

• Some organizations say that the publication title is not under consideration

Altmetrics – How?

• Three main funding models for Altmetrics services companies – From publishers

– From libraries/institutions

– From authors/researchers

Altmetrics – How?

• Altmetric

– For Publishers

–Bookmarklet

–Bookmetrix

– For Institutions and/or individuals

Altmetrics – How?

• Plum Analytics

• http://www.plumanalytics.com/about.html

• Pitt and/or the University of Denver

Altmetrics – How?

• ImpactStory

–https://impactstory.org/JosephKraus

Altmetrics – How?

• GrowKudos.com

–Ann Lawson

– ann@growkudos.com

– She has worked with someone at T&F

–https://growkudos.com/about/publishers

• AddThis & ShareThis services

Altmetrics – More examples

• From PLOS ONE

–http://www.plosone.org/article/Metrics/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0046150

Other things to investigate

• https://www.researchfish.com/ (for researchers & funding organizations)

• http://symplectic.co.uk/ (For institutions)

• http://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scival SciVal “Highlight the impact of their research for assessment and funding purposes”

• https://hootsuite.com/plans/enterprise

• https://dlvr.it/pages/learn-more.php (similar to addthis/twitterfeed)

Pop Quiz

• Who said or wrote:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Questions?

More information

• http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-13/

• http://crln.acrl.org/content/74/6/292.full

• http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/altmetrics

• https://kevinthelibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/altmetrics-and-evaluating-scholarly-impact-whats-out-there-and-how-can-we-participate/

Even more

• Library Journal article on Plum by Bonnie Swoger

• Assessing Altmetrics: Why law librarians (and law schools) should care about altmetrics

• https://www.diigo.com/user/jokrausdu/altmetrics

• Follow #altmetrics on Twitter • http://www.mendeley.com/groups/586171/

altmetrics/

Image credits

• Google Images, “labeled for reuse with modification”

• Raised hands http://www.ok.gov/abletech/images/Classroom-FourthGraders.jpg via http://www.ok.gov/abletech/Special_Education_Resolution_Center/

• https://twitter.com/IanMulvany/status/425006889949495296