Promoting Your Research Activities
General Information
Alternative impact measures, or altmetrics, complement traditional metrics. They aim to highlight the use of research results on the Internet by considering shares on X, Facebook and other social media, downloads on platforms such as Mendeley, and mentions in blogs, wikis, and news media.
While still a relatively new field, there is research on the link between altmetrics and traditional citations. Results point to positive and weak correlations between alternative and traditional measures (Haustein 2013, Shema 2014, Costas 2014). This could show that alternative measures do, in fact, provide complementary information to traditional metrics.
In 2016, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) published The Outputs of the NISO Alternative Assessment of the Metrics Project, which includes recommendations on data metrics.
Altmetrics have become a useful tool for research impact metrics outside academia.
Tools
- The Altmetric Bookmarklet at altmetric.comThe bookmarklet installed on your computer provides altmetrics on articles. Altmetric.com offers other services that are, for the most part, available for a fee.
- ImpactstoryA free website with open data and an open-source code for discovering the altmetrics of various types of documents (articles, presentations, videos, etc.). The Impactstory profile is built from the publications included in ORCID profiles.
- Plum AnalyticsA pay-for tool that lets you access altmetrics on individuals, research groups or institutions. Plum Analytics was bought by Elsevier in 2017.
For more information...
- Altmetrics in ContextDocument published by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries in December 2013. Includes a bibliography of about 10 titles on the subject.
- Altmetrics: A ManifestoOne of the earliest documents on altmetrics, published in 2010. It is a good introduction on how alternative impact measures can improve our way of evaluating publications.
- Plum Analytics was bought by ElsevierSome implications of this change in ownership.
- Introduction to Altmetrics
This link opens in a new window
An introductory article to altmetrics, including a comparison with traditional measures. - The Power of Altmetrics on a CVAn overview of the advantages of putting altmetrics on your CV.
- Altmetrics: Value all research products
- This link opens in a new window
Article published in Nature in 2013: "Altmetrics give a fuller picture of how research products have influenced conversation, thought and behaviour." - Funders drawn to alternative metrics
- This link opens in a new window
An article, published in 2014, explaining how some funders are using altmetrics.
Databases
Searching databases allows you to find various materials such as journal articles, conference papers, dissertations, technical standards, patents, etc.
You can also restrict your searching to a specific subject area.
Bookmarklet from altmetric.com
Details about using the bookmarklet available on altmetric.com. To obtain information on an article using the bookmarklet, the article must have a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
