Last week, a group forward-thinking individuals interested in measuring scholarly impact gathered at Fort Mason in San Francisco to talk about altmetrics. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funded the events at Fort Mason, which included (1) an altmetrics-focused workshop run by the open-access publisher (and leader in ALM) PLOS, and (2) a NISO Alternative Assessment Initiative Project Workshop to discuss standards and best practices for altmetrics.
In lieu of a blog post for Data Pub, I wrote up something for the folks over at the London School of Economics Impact of Social Sciences Blog. Here’s a snippet that explains altmetrics:
Altmetrics focuses broadening the things we are measuring, as well as how we measure them. For instance, article-level metrics (ALMs) report on aspects of the article itself, rather than the journal in which it can be found. ALM reports might include the number of article views, the number of downloads, and the number of references to the article in social media such as Twitter. In addition to measuring the impact of articles in new ways, the altmetrics movement is also striving to expand what scholarly outputs are assessed – rather than focusing on journal articles, we could also be giving credit for other scholarly outputs such as datasets, software, and blog posts.
So head on over and read up on the role of higher education institutions in altmetrics: “Universities can improve academic services through wider recognition of altmetrics and alt-products.”
