Bibliometrics & Responsible Research Evaluation: Altmetrics

Altmetrics are measures that capture the attention a resource generates on the social web or other sources. This attention could be positive or negative.

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.

Possible applications of alternative metrics

• Editors may use it to assess the online reach of their journal(s) on social media platforms and news media, which can help inform their communication efforts.
• Researchers may use altmetrics to demonstrate the engagement of their scholarly work with the public and in less formal communication channels.
• University administrators may use the data to assess the public interest in certain fields, or even departments with the institutional view of AE, across their university.
• Funders may allow or encourage the inclusion of altmetrics in grant proposals to demonstrate public engagement via social media and news media mentions, industry influence via patent citations, or public policy influence via policy document citations.

(taken from Introducing the new responsible use guide: Using Altmetric Data Responsibly: A Guide to Interpretation and Best Practice, 2023)

Speed: Altmetrics can accumulate more quickly than traditional metrics such as citations.

Range: Altmetrics can be gathered for many types of research output, not just scholarly articles, and help to provide a more holistic picture of impact using broader indicators to complement citations.

Non-academic: Altmetrics can show the attention and engagement outside the academic world, where people may use but not cite research e.g. practitioner or societal impact

Caveats & Limitations:

• Standards remain at an early and ongoing state of development
• Like other metrics, they can be open to manipulation and gaming
• Popularity (attention) does not always equal quality of research
• Data sources come and go so may be difficult to track over time in a meaningful way (e.g. MySpace, Connotea)

Depending on the tool (Altmetric.com, PlumX, ImpactStory etc.) altmetrics can measure different types of attention from many different sources:

Usage: Views, downloads from journals, repositories etc.

Mentions: News stories, book reviews, policy documents, blog posts, Wikipedia articles, comments, peer review platforms

Captures: Online reference management shares such as Mendeley or CiteULike bookmarks

Social Media: Tweets, Bluesky, Facebook shares, YouTube

Citations: Scopus, Web of Science

PlumX Metrics, provided by Elsevier, capture the ways people interact with individual pieces of research output (articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and many more) in the online environment. 

"Plum Prints" displaying article usage, mentions, citations and shares are available to access through the Scopus database for items indexed in Scopus.

You can also add a specific doi to the end of this URL to display a selection of Plum metrics: https://plu.mx/a/?doi=