1.
AltMetrics
Bruce Antelman
ThinkLoud
Capturing the Buzz

2.
For years scientists
have been trying to
measure the quality
of scholarly work

3.
Qualitative Measures
Peer Recognition - Word of mouth, invited talks
Classes - lectures and assigned reading
Review articles & textbooks

4.
Quantitative Measures
Journal Citation Counts - Number of times an article is
cited in other articles
Journal Impact Factor - number of times all articles in a
journal are cited in other journals

5.
Altmetrics attempts to
use online activity to
measure impact, buzz,
word of mouth for
scientific information
and it includes new
ways to measure usage.
(*)
* Dance, A. Nature, 502, 397-398 (2013) doi:10.1038/nj7471-397a

6.
Counter vs ALM
Counter statistics measure how subscriptions are used
inside your institution.
Altmetrics measures how scholarly information is used by
the outside world and what they think of it.

7.
Two Types of Measures
Buzz - New ways to measure mentions of scholarly
information on Social Media
Usage - New ways to measure usage at the citation and object
level

8.
AltMetrics – What Measured
!
Viewed - HTML views & downloads, many types of media
Discussed - journal comments, science blogs, Wikipedia,
Twitter, Facebook and other social media
Saved - Mendeley, CiteULike and other social bookmarks
Cited - citations in the scholarly literature, tracked by
Web of Science, Scopus, CrossRef and others
Recommended - for example Computing Reviews &
Faculty of 1000

9.
AltMetrics – More than Articles
Traditional articles & books
Objects in papers - figures, graphs, pictures
Software Tools - GitHub
Datasets - Dryad or figshare
Molecular structures
Algorithms
Slideshows - SlideShare
Grants
Patents
Mentions in popular Media, blogs and Social media
Still more valuable sources to cover - classes, seminars,
lectures, posters, journal clubs and more

10.
AltMetrics – How Measured
Aggregation is difficult - data in many formats,
stored in different ways, in many places, some not
accessible (NISO standard being developed).
Author names are not standard and multiple
copies of media under different names - ORCID, Data
One, BioShare
Many covered sources have open APIs or special
arrangements made to access their data

11.
AltMetrics - Who Does It
Plum Analytics - Service provider with API. Profile
page and analytics. Say the cover more Metric
sources than anyone else
Impact Story - Displays data in a CV like format.
Could become the Linked-In for Scientists. Has API.
PLOS - One of the first publishers to use article
level metrics. One of the current leaders. Has API.
Altmetric.com - Service provider with API for
publishers, bibliographic websites and more. also
offer bookmarklet.

12.
AltMetrics - Benefits
Reader - discovery, way to identify new, interesting
current works and people
Authors - way to get recognition for work besides articles
Publishers - way to measure “success” of publications and
to identify new authors and topics
Grantors & Universities - may become an additional metric
for grants, hiring and promotion and a way to measure
impact of funding initiatives
Bibliographic Databases - Another information element to
display with the citation

13.
AltMetrics - Problems
Buzz Can Be Manipulated - Promoting your work is frowned up by some, will
it soon promoting your work will be part of the PhD Curriculum.
Academics, especially scientists, don’t use Social Media like the Public,
though they do use some tools. There is not enough data to give a balanced
picture, though this might be changing.
Jerry Letvin: “the best ideas in science aren’t recognized at first. this type
of work (referring to reviews) just reinforces the prevailing view’. How
would Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity score altmetricaly if it was
published today? (7)Grantor - “While I think that there are some good tools
and interesting strategies out there, to evaluate productivity and impact,
they are basically making value judgments but real life is more complex.
‘Success‘ is a difficult quantify and there is a significant amount of luck and
unpredictability.”
When discussing altmetrics Impact assessment, discovery and conversation
are frequently mixed up
Over reliance on metrics is natural and inevitable.

14.
AltMetrics - Future
More sources, better algorithms, sentiment analysis
Might influence scientists to use more social media
Over reliance on almetrics is inevitable

15.
AltMetrics - Library’s role
Become the expert at your institution
Help readers learn how to use altmetrics to identify what/
who is new and interesting
Identify media to add to your library’s collection
Work more closely with other groups in your institution who
use social metrics
Measure what the buzz is inside your institution
Measure what is being said about your institution on the
web
As it develops, if you find value in altmetrics tell publishers
to add them

16.
Bruce Antelman
ThinkLoud
Capturing the Buzz
Thank You