An Introduction to Altmetrics

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An Introduction to AltmetricsTara J. Brigham aa Winn-Dixie Foundation Medical Library, Mayo Clinic , Jacksonville ,Florida , USAPublished online: 14 Oct 2014.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Matthew B. Hoy and Tara J. Brigham, Column Editors

An Introduction to Altmetrics

TARA J. BRIGHAMWinn-Dixie Foundation Medical Library, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, are forging a new way to capturethe impact of not only articles, but also scholarly or research‘‘products’’ by tracking them when they are mentioned online,such as in blogs or social media platforms. While altmetrics havea lot of potential, there are also some limitations preventing theirfull acceptance alongside traditional citation metrics. This columnwill explain the basics of altmetrics and altmetric tools, discusssome of the ways they can be used in libraries, and explore somepossible concerns with this new metric. A list of resources foradditional information is also included.

KEYWORDS Altmetrics, citation metrics, social media

INTRODUCTION

Researchers and scholars are often interested in the impact their findingshave made, not only in their field but also in the wider context of the sciencecommunity and even in mainstream media. Increasingly, administrators andgranting organizations are also interested in this sort of information, usually

# Tara J. BrighamComments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editors: Matthew B. Hoy

([email protected]) and Tara J. Brigham ([email protected]).Address correspondence to Tara J. Brigham, Winn-Dixie Foundation Medical Library,

Mayo Clinic, 4500 San Pablo Road, Jacksonville, FL 32224. E-mail: [email protected] versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at

www.tandfonline.com/wmrs.

Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 33(4):438–447, 2014Published with license by Taylor & FrancisISSN: 0276-3869 print=1540-9597 onlineDOI: 10.1080/02763869.2014.957093

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to determine tenure or to justify how departmental time or public funds arebeing spent.

Traditionally, research or scholarly impact has been measured using arange of different citation metrics. Some examples of these metrics are thenumber of peer-reviewed articles published by an author, the number ofcitations accumulated from those published articles, and the ranking of thejournals in which those articles were published. However, there are limita-tions that prevent these measurements from being comprehensive, foolproof,or even directly correlative. As observed by the number of individuals andorganizations that have now signed the San Francisco Declaration onResearch Assessment (DORA), there is an obvious discontent of usingjournal-based metrics to measure the impact of individual papers andresearchers.1

Altmetrics presents academics, researchers, or any creators of scholarlycontent the opportunity to showcase previously unknown and unrecognizedimpact metrics. This column will explain what altmetrics are and the toolsassociated with them, concerns surrounding their use, as well as theirapplication in the library setting.

WHAT ARE ALTMETRICS?

The term altmetrics—alternative metrics or alternative to conventional metricmeasures—was first coined by Jason Priem in a 2010 tweet.2 Priem, alongwith Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth, and Cameron Neylon, went on to writea manifesto that further defined altmetrics and its relevance in a world thatwas increasingly online.3 Three years later, Priem would describe altmetricsas the following:

Altmetrics is the study and use of scholarly impact measures based onactivity in online tools and environments. The term has also been usedto describe the metrics themselves–one could propose in plural a ‘setof new altmetrics.’ Altmetrics is in most cases a subset of both sciento-metrics and webometrics; it is a subset of the latter in that it focusesmore narrowly on scholarly influence as measured in online tools andenvironments, rather than on the Web more generally.4

Altmetrics cover more types of scholarly information since they not onlymeasure article-level metrics but can also capture metrics on other research‘‘products’’ as well. These other research products, such as data sets and soft-ware, are often overlooked in traditional citation metrics. And while mostlarge funding organizations such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health stillrequest a list of publications as validation of a researcher’s influence and skillon a grant application, the National Science Foundation made headlines in2013 when it changed the wording in its policy from ‘‘Publications’’ to

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‘‘Products.’’5 This change signaled to many researchers that other aspects oftheir work would now be recognized if it was citable and accessible. Alt-metrics are proving to be one of the ways that researchers are now able totrack the impact of these other research products. Due to a broader coverageof scholarly activity, altmetrics might also be helpful for clinicians and otherhealth professionals who are more actively producing videos, blogs, books,and even posters, instead of journal articles.

Since altmetrics aggregators are pulling data daily or weekly, they canproduce a quicker turn-around time to reflect the influence an article or pieceof research is exerting on a particular field. Altmetrics can also reveal how itaffects a wider diversity of individuals, such as practitioners, clinicians, edu-cators, and the general public.6 For scholars and researchers who would liketo show how far their research stretches into the mainstream, altmetrics canbe that link. In addition, altmetrics can provide a greater understanding ofhow a publication or product is being used. They can disclose which schol-arly products are being read, discussed, saved, and recommended as well ascited.6 Tracking the variance in usage has led to the concept in altmetricliterature called ‘‘impact flavors.’’ Impact flavors are a way to ‘‘understandthe distinctive patterns in the diverse impacts of individual products.’’7

The impact flavor of a scholarly or research product featured in the main-stream media is going to be much different than one heavily saved in anonline citation manager or cited in a research paper. Altmetrics capture thedynamism that permeates the online environment and attempt to marry itto the established process of measuring impact.

ALTMETRICS TOOLS

While the tools used to gather altmetrics are in flux, currently there are threemain altmetrics aggregators that anyone can use to explore them.

Altmetric.com

Altmetric.com or Altmetric LLC reveals the impact of anything with a digitalobject identifier (DOI) or other standard identifier. It can find mentions ofpapers, books, datasets in social media sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook,Pinterest, Googleþ), science blogs, many mainstream media outlets (includ-ing the NY Times, The Guardian, and special interest publications likeScientific American and New Scientist), government policy documents, andreference managers for mentions of academic papers.8 Its trademarkAltmetric ‘‘donuts’’ are a recognizable feature of this service. The colors thatmake up the donut reflect the mix of sources mentioning the Altmetricscore—blue for Twitter, yellow for blogs, red for mainstream media sources,and so on. The Altmetric score is an aggregate metric that is created by using

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the count from all the relevant mentions from a set of online sources (seeabove), along with the relative influence of each source.9 The Altmetric isa fee-based, subscription tool. It is geared toward publishers and institutionswith various plans and pricing. Nature Publishing Group (nature.com) andScopus are two examples that have incorporated Altmetric’s information intotheir website (see Figure 1). Individuals can use a free Bookmarklet toinstantly view the altmetrics of certain papers. There are a few restrictionsto using the Altmetric Bookmarklet, but it can produce altmetric figures ifused in PubMed or any web page with a DOI.

Impactstory.org

ImpactStory.org is an open source and open access tool which is currentlyfunded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Individuals can sign up for a free30-day trial and can continue to use ImpactStory for $60 per year after thetrial ends. Co-founded by Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar, ImpactStorywas originally called ‘‘total-impact’’ and was a hackathon project developed

FIGURE 1 Screenshot of Altmetric donut in the Scopus database. (Data provided byAltmetric.com as of July 29, 2014).


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at the UK Beyond Impact workshop in 2011.10 ImpactStory tracks the impactof articles, data sets, software, videos, presentations, posters, and labwebsites by monitoring a wide variety of data sources.10,11 At present, metricsare computed based on the following sources:

. Altmetric.com (which includes, blog posts, Facebook public posts,Googleþ posts, Twitter tweets),

. arXiv.org,

. CiteULike,

. Crossref,

. Delicious,

. Dryad,

. figshare,

. GitHub,

. Mendeley,

. PLoS search and article-level metrics,

. PubMed,

. Scopus,

. SlideShare,

. Vimeo,

. Web pages,

. Wikipedia, and

. YouTube.

Scholars or researchers can create a collection by uploading articles or pro-ducts using Google Scholar or Open Researcher and Contributor ID(ORCID), or by providing PubMed IDs, DOI, or URL identifiers. ImpactStorythen gathers and provides information on the author’s profile that conveysthe altmetrics of each article or research product, detailing the influencewithin the context of the year it was published or created, and based onengagement type and audience.

Plum Analytics

Plum Analytics was founded in 2011 by former Microsoft librarian, MikeBuschman and entrepreneur Andrea Michalek. They developed an analysistool called PlumX that tracks more than 20 different types of what it calls ‘‘arti-facts,’’ which includes ‘‘journal articles, books, videos, presentations, confer-ence proceedings, datasets, source code, cases, and more.’’12 On theseresearch products or artifacts, it collects impact metrics in five major cate-gories: usage, captures, mentions, social media, and citations. The ‘‘Sunburst’’visualization illustrates artifact types, individual artifacts, and the data fromeach source. It is included to help scholars, researchers, and administratorsunderstand the large amount of data that is collected. Similar to Altmetric.com,


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PlumX is a fee-based, tiered subscription tool. However, it is geared mainlytowards institutions or organizations, and pricing is based on the number ofresearchers tracked by the system. It offers a free trial of PlumX profile forindividual researchers. In January 2014, Plum Analytics became a part ofEBSCO Information Services.

CONCERNS ABOUT ALTMETRICS

As with traditional citation metrics, altmetrics can succumb to the sameproblems. Author disambiguation, gaming, and new issues, such as a lackof authority and regulation, hinder the widespread use of altmetrics. Theseissues have caused many scholars and researchers to be hesitant to use themin grant applications or promotion material.

One of the difficulties of gathering accurate altmetrics is author or cre-ator disambiguation. While a new initiative, called the ORCID is workingto accurately attribute articles and products to authors by assigning eachauthor a unique identifier, it is still not widespread.13 ORCID is free foranyone to register and is supported by many publishers and research univer-sities, but is self-driven which means that the authors typically have to signup themselves.

Gaming is another concern surrounding the usefulness of altmetrics.Librarian and predatory publisher watchdog, Jeffrey Beall, warns of the veryreal potential for altmetrics or article-level metrics to be gamed. He points outthat there are already companies which sell Facebook likes and those thatwill promote an article for a price.14 Individuals with enough technical skilland malicious intent could create multiple social media profiles and programthem to regularly endorse the links to a certain article, leading to inflatedaltmetric values. This type of gaming leads to another problem: lack ofregulation and authority. Unlike the regulated computations of scholarlyinfluence such as the journal impact factor, it is unclear how altmetrics woulddistinguish between a poorly written article receiving a high number of men-tions in the mainstream media and an article of higher quality discussedamong leaders in that particular field. ‘‘[A] new paper that receives Facebooklikes from a dozen Nobel laureates may be of higher impact than anotherpaper that receives 50 likes from undergraduates at the local junior col-lege.’’15 Important distinctions in the quality of feedback and recognitionare currently lacking in most altmetric calculations.

Another limitation of using altmetric figures is the inability to use themcomparatively between different disciplines. Some disciplines are moreactive than others online, and involvement can also vary depending on thesocial media tool. Whereas one discipline has adopted Twitter as a platformfor discussing new and relevant information, another might have a strongerfollowing on Mendeley. The popularity evolution among the social media


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platforms can also be a limitation of altmetrics. Social media tools likeMySpace and Friendster were much more active eight years ago, but havesince diminished in popularity and have been replaced with other tools likeTwitter and Facebook. This means that altmetric measures should be regu-larly updated and normalized if they are to remain useful.15

Those currently working on altmetrics tools have recognized and areaddressing some of the concerns identified above. In regards to gaming,Altmetric.com employees point out that ‘‘right now such gaming of thesystem is rare, but simple to spot algorithmically; in the case of Twitterspam, where hundreds of fake accounts will suddenly engage in meaning-less, random retweets, all of the accounts are quite new, follow each otherand have never mentioned a scholarly article before.’’9 There are alsoexperienced groups like SSRN (Social Science Research Network) andCOUNTER (Counting ONline Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources)who regularly deal with these types of issues and could provide futureassistance.9

There is also the effort to benchmark and put altmetrics into proper con-text. Many of the altmetrics tools have incorporated a ranking system thatmakes comparisons between other articles within the same journal, writtenduring the same time frame, and across the whole database:

As an example, the most popular article in the Altmetric databasereceived an incredible amount of online attention relative to other itemsappearing in the same journal (Canadian Medical Association Journal).Accordingly, the article-level metrics page included a context statement,indicating that the article’s Altmetric score ‘‘is one of the highest everscores in this journal (ranked #1 of 940).’’9

While there are clearly inroads being made to remedy some of the morepressing problems, until these issues are resolved and quality improves,altmetrics may not be taken as seriously as traditional citation metrics.

LIBRARIES AND ALTMETRICS

As academics, researchers, or any creator of scholarly content endeavors tofind new ways of providing evidence of their impact value, librarians orinformation professionals can offer to assist them in a number of ways.Librarians are the perfect educators and disseminators of information aboutaltmetrics. They can help scholars and researchers negotiate the landscapeof both altmetrics and traditional impact metrics. This could prove helpfulto staff if they are interested in using altmetrics for career advancement orfor pursuing grant funding. Additionally, librarians can provide an objectiveperspective of the pros and cons of altmetrics and explain the nuances thatare important in understanding how altmetrics work. Since altmetrics cover a


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wider range of ‘‘products’’ other than just articles, they could prove useful inhospital or other medical libraries, in addition to those that serve academicstaff and researchers. For example, a local physician produces a YouTubevideo regarding a public health issue and is curious how useful it is in thewider community. In addition to the physician running a study, a librariancould offer to track the altmetrics of the video.

Librarians can also help administrators who are interested in learningmore about altmetrics as well. At many institutions, administrators arebecoming more focused on quantitative data versus other measures whenjudging the worth of staff, research groups, or departments. Librarians canhelp administrators understand the limitations of using altmetrics for certainpurposes and how they compare with other measures of influence.

This data are valuable to administrators seeking to get a picture abouthow groups compare to one another and to their peer groups in otherinstitutions—but the truth is that decision-makers want quantifiable datafor making decisions. Promotion, hiring, and grant funding processes willcontinue to evolve, but those changes will not be prerequisites for includingmore holistic measurements.16

ALTMETRIC RESOURCES

The following resources contain additional information about altmetrics:Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). ‘‘Altmetrics:What, Why and Where?’’ ASIS&T Bulletin 39, no. 4. (April=May 2013).http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-13/.

Special issue dedicated to the topic of altmetrics.

Galloway, L.M., J.L. Pease, and A.E. Rauh. ‘‘Introduction to Altmetrics forScience, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Librarians.’’Science & Technology Libraries 32, no. 4 (2013): 335–345. doi: 10.1080=0194262X.2013.829762.

Helpful overview of altmetrics; geared toward librarians in the science,technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

Holmes, K. ‘‘Going Beyond Bibliometric and Altmetric Counts toUnderstand Impact.’’ Library Connect Newsletter, May 27, 2014. http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/articles/2014-05/going-beyond-bibliometric-and-altmetric-counts-understand-impact#sthash.9AP9vPBJ.dpuf.

Short but effective overview of how bibliometrics and altmetrics canwork together to reveal research impact. Watch the webinar presentationas well.

PLOS. ‘‘PLOS Collections. Table of Contents: Altmetrics Collection.’’ 2012.http://www.ploscollections.org/altmetrics.


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A collection of articles on the emerging body of research to seed furtherstudy and use of altmetrics.

Priem, J., H.A. Piwowar, and B.M. Hemminger. ‘‘Altmetrics In the Wild: UsingSocial Media to Explore Scholarly Impact.’’ arXiv.org. March 20, 2012. http://arxiv.org/html/1203.4745v1.

Focuses on questions such as: Is there enough data available to con-struct meaningful metrics (from social media outlets)? How is data distributedacross tools, users, and time? How do altmetrics relate to accepted citationmeasures?

Priem, J., D. Taraborelli, P. Groth, and C. Neylon. ‘‘Altmetrics: A Manifesto.(v.1.01).’’ Altmetrics. September 28, 2011. http://altmetrics.org/manifesto.

The manifesto written by Jason Priem, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth,and Cameron Neylon on why altmetrics should be taken seriously.

CONCLUSION

The continued growth of altmetrics seems inevitable, although their wide-spread application appears less certain. Acceptance of altmetrics will largelydepend on their usefulness and quality. Librarians can help others under-stand the complexities that come with using altmetrics and how to properlyincorporate them with other impact measures.

REFERENCES

1. San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) 2012. http://am.ascb.org/dora/.

2. Priem, J. (jasonpriem). ‘‘I like the term #articlelevelmetrics, but it fails to imply�diversity� of measures. Lately, I’m liking #altmetrics.’’ September 28, 2010,7:28 p.m. https:==twitter.com=jasonpriem=status=25844968813. Tweet.

3. Priem, J., D. Taraborelli, P. Groth, and C. Neylon. ‘‘Altmetrics: A Manifesto.(v.1.01).’’ Altmetrics. September 28, 2011. http://altmetrics.org/manifesto.

4. Priem, J., P. Groth, and D. Taraborelli. ‘‘The Altmetrics Collection.’’ PLoS ONE 7,no. 11: e48753. doi:10.1371=journal.pone.0048753.

5. National Science Foundation. NSF 13–1, Grant Proposal Guide Summary ofChanges. January 2013. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf13001/gpg_sigchanges.jsp.

6. Piwowar, H. ‘‘Altmetrics: What, Why and Where?’’ ASIS&T Bulletin 39, no. 4(April=May 2013): 8–9. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts,EBSCOhost.

7. Lapinski, S., H. Piwowar, and J. Priem. ‘‘Riding the Crest of the AltmetricsWave.’’ C&RL News 74, no. 6 (June 2013): 292–300. Library, Information Science &Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost.


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8. Altmetric, LLC. ‘‘What Does Altmetric Do?’’ Accessed July 13, 2014. http://www.altmetric.com/whatwedo.php.

9. Liu, J., and E. Adie. ‘‘Five Challenges in Altmetrics: A Toolmaker’s Perspective.’’ASIS&T Bulletin 39, no. 4. (April=May 2013): 31–34. Library, Information Science &Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost.

10. ImpactStory. ‘‘FAQ.’’ Accessed July 13, 2014. http://impactstory.org/faq.11. Piwowar, H. ‘‘Value All Research Products.’’ Nature 493 (January 10, 2013): 159.12. Plum Analytics. ‘‘Overview: Plum Metrics.’’ Accessed July 14, 2014. http://

www.plumanalytics.com/metrics.html.13. Galloway, L.M., J.L. Pease, and A.E. Rauh. ‘‘Introduction to Altmetrics

for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Librarians.’’Science & Technology Libraries 32, no. 4 (2013): 335–345. Library, InformationScience & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost.

14. Beall, J. ‘‘Article-Level Metrics: An Ill-Conceived and Meretricious Idea.’’Scholarly Open Access (blog). August 1, 2013. http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/08/01/article-level-metrics/.

15. Tananbaum, G. ‘‘Article-Level Metrics: A SPARC Primer.’’ SPARC. April 2013.http://www.sparc.arl.org/resource/sparc-article-level-metrics-primer.

16. Buschman, M., and A. Michalek. ‘‘Are Alternative Metrics Still Alternative?’’ASIS&T Bulletin 39, no. 4 (April=May 2013): 35–39. Library, Information Science &Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tara J. Brigham ([email protected]) is Librarian, Winn-DixieFoundation Medical Library, Mayo Clinic, 4500 San Pablo Road, Jacksonville,FL 32224.


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Documents

An Introduction to Altmetrics