What are Altmetrics?
Altmetrics or alternative metrics measure the attention a resource generates on the social web or other sources. Altmetric.com is a subscription product.
They can be applied to journal articles, books/book chapters, software, datasets, websites, videos, etc.
Altmetrics attempt to show influence and engagement of work through blogs, reference management systems, scholarly social networks, and other platforms.They are metrics that complement traditional metrics such as citation counts to capture the impact within the scholarly community and beyond in the society.
See below for a 3 min YouTube video with closed captions called What are Altmetrics?
What do Altmetrics Include?
Depending on the tool in use (Altmetric.com, PLOS, Plum, ImpactStory etc.) Some of these tools require a subscription.
Altmetrics can measure different types of attention from many different sources:
- Usage: Views, downloads (Figshare, Dryad, Slideshare).
- Captures: Mendeley bookmarks, CiteULike bookmarks.
- Mentions: Blog posts, news stories, policy documents, Wikipedia articles, comments, reviews.
- Social Media: Likes, shares etc.
- Citations: Scopus, Web of Science.
Altmetrics on CityLibrary Search
You can see some examples of Altmetrics data (where available) on CityLibrary Search
Conduct a search and when you have a list of results, the Altmetrics score will appear to the right hand side of some of the results. Click on this to see more information such as X and Facebook mentions and the number of readers on social networking tools (eg. Mendeley).
Altmetrics on databases
Some databases such as ScienceDirect display Altmetric data for articles and publications where available.
As mentioned above, you can install the Altmetric bookmarklet tool on your browser and click on this while reading a journal article to see an Altmetric overview.
Altmetrics and City Research Online
Look out for the Altmetric button next to items in City Research Online This will link to data from Altmetric.com and show you how often an article has been mentioned or shared on X, Mendeley etc
Read an article from City Research Online? If you have found it useful and wish to comment on it or to share it with other researchers, you can use the share buttons next to each article.
Issues with Altmetrics
- Prone to gaming and manipulation.
- Difficult to standardise across social platforms.
- Social media likes are not a measure of academic quality or citability.
- Fast pace of uptake and developments in social media.
- Many papers not mentioned at all on social media platforms.
- Many of the issues with citation metrics also apply to Altmetrics.
- Data can be interesting but it is not always clear how to use it.