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?
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