Altmetrics are indicators of online societal attention and engagement with research. They measure the impact of research occurring outside bibliometrics and the traditional academic sphere (e.g. online activity, downloads, reviews, mentions in reports), and also provide metrics for Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs).
For example:
- Commentary on social media and coverage in news media
- Engagement on researcher platforms
- Citations in non-scholarly publications (reports, policy documents, Wikipedia, datasets, outputs in the creative and performing arts)
Why use altmetrics?
- To demonstrate the engagement and value of your research in society, beyond academia (e.g. practitioners, journalists, health professionals).
- To find mentions and citations for disciplines not well represented in large indexing databases such as Web of Science and Scopus.
- To determine where the research interests are, and therefore ascertain where there may be research gaps.
- To develop relationships by finding out who is interested in your area of research.
- To strengthen your applications for research grants and promotions.
Keep in mind:
- There are various measures and providers of altmetrics - determine which ones are most relevant to your area of research
- Altmetrics don’t convey the whole picture - use them in conjunction with other measures and data to build your research story
- Like any metric, there’s a potential for manipulation or gaming. You need to critically consider the value of the data.
- Data is not normalized or standardised.
