Altmetrics
What
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Altmetrics, or Alternative Metrics, refers to data that indicate the impact or attention a particular work receives on social media such as views, downloads, mentions in the media, and shares via platforms such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook and Mendeley. Altmetric providers also track citations in publications such as policy documents, patents, and medical guidelines.
Why
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In the absence of (or in addition to) citation metrics, Altmetrics can provide an indication of attention received by a research output as a proxy for its impact or potential future impact
Applications
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Academic promotions, grant applications, CV
Considerations
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Altmetrics generally do not hold the same weight as citations as an indicator of impact
Common tools
- Altmetric for Institutions
- Altmetric.com bookmarklet
- Altmetric.com via Elements
- PlumX Metrics via Scopus
- Publisher website
- Research Profiles and Repository
How to find altmetrics:
1. Altmetric Explorer
Access Altmetric Explorer with this link and your WesternAccount login details: https://www-altmetric-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/explorer/login
Click “Edit Search” at the top of the landing page, then search for yourself in the “Verified Author” field, and click “Run Search”. This will limit the data to mentions of your publications. You can then explore highlights or navigate to specific data like News, Policy, or Patents mentions.
2. Altmetric.com Bookmarklet
- Follow the instructions on the Altmetric website to install the Altmetric bookmarklet
- When viewing an article on PubMed, arXiv, the publisher page, Scopus or any page containing a DOI, click the bookmarklet to see altmetric details such as policy and news citations, shares and mentions.
3. PlumX Altmetrics via Scopus
- When viewing a document record in Scopus, look for the colourful Plum Print in the Metrics box, at the top right hand side of the record.
- Click the Plum Print to access the detailed metrics page, including Usage, Captures, Mentions, Social Media, and Citations beyond Scopus (such as policy and clinical guideline citations).
- Click see details for more information, such as individual tweets or media articles.
For more information, see the Elsevier blog post PlumX Metrics now on Scopus: Discover how others interact with your research.
4. Publisher websites
Some publishers include article-level altmetric information on their websites, for example:
- For articles in PLOS journals, select the Metrics tab
- For articles in the Scopus database, scroll to view the Metrics box in the bottom right-hand corner, and select View all Metrics for more details
- For articles in Taylor and Francis journals, select the Citation tab.
For other publishers, look for a section, box, or tab around the article that says something like "metrics" or "altmetrics" or "article statistics" (but note that it's not always available).
5. Research Profiles and Repository
Research Profiles and Repository provides abstract view, PDF download data, along with traditional citation metrics.
- To gather this data for an author, use the Advanced search and search the author by surname from the search box
- View abstract views and downloads for each item in the results list
- Download a PDF file by clicking on the URL then choosing to Download to PDF from your browser