What Does Your Repository Do?: Understanding and Calculating Impact

Librarians working in scholarly communications need to understand how to calculate and explain how including work in a repository affects its impact. This presentation describes the current state of research and practice into metrics for repositories including traditional metrics and newer alternative metrics, and some preliminary results of a research study assessing the usage and impact of a Digital Commons repository.
Heller, Margaret, "What Does Your Repository Do?: Understanding and Calculating Impact" (2014). University Libraries: Faculty Publications & Other Works. Paper 28.

Altmetrics for Institutions

Altmetrics for Institutions - excellent presentation by Jean Liu from Altmetrics.

Ten reasons you should put altmetrics on your CV right now

Altmetrics can:

1. provide additional information;
2. de-emphasize inappropriate metrics;
3. uncover the impact of just-published work;
4. legitimize all types of scholarly products;
5. recognize diverse impact flavors;
6. reward effective efforts to facilitate reuse;
7. encourage a focus on public engagement;
8. facilitate qualitative exploration;
9. empower publication choice; and
10. spur innovation in research evaluation.

Read the whole post.......

NISO Issues Altmetrics White Paper Draft for Comment

It had to happen!  Altmetrics is becoming "official"

"The paper summarizes community input to development of potential standards and recommended practices for research assessment metrics"

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has released a draft white paper summarizing Phase I of its Alternative Assessment Metrics (Altmetrics) Project for public comment. The Initiative was launched in July 2013, with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to study, propose, and develop community-based standards or recommended practices for alternative metrics. In Phase 1 of the project, three in-person meetings were held and 30 in-person interviews conducted to collect input from all relevant stakeholders, including researchers, librarians, university administrators, scientific research funders, and publishers. The draft white paper is the summary of the findings from those meetings and interviews, along with the identification of potential action items for further work in Phase II of the project.

“Citation reference counts and the Journal Impact Factor have historically been the main metric used to assess the quality and usefulness of scholarship,” explains Martin Fenner, Technical Lead Article-Level Metrics for the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and consultant to NISO for the project. “While citations will remain an important component of research assessment, this metric alone does not effectively measure the expanded scope of forms of scholarly communication and newer methods of online reader behavior, network interactions with content, and social media. A movement around the use of alternative metrics, sometimes called ‘altmetrics,’ has grown to address the limitations of the traditional measures. With any new methodology, however, issues arise due to the lack of standards or best practices as stakeholders experiment with different approaches and use different definitions for similar concepts. NISO’s Altmetrics project gathered together the variety of stakeholders in this arena to better understand the issues, obtain their input on what issues could best be addressed with standards or recommended practices, and prioritize the potential actions. This white paper organizes and summarizes the valuable feedback obtained from over 400 participants in the project and identifies a road forward for Phase II of the project.”

“More than 250 ideas were generated by participants in the meetings and interviews,” states Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “We were able to condense these to 25 action items in nine categories: definitions, research outputs, discovery, research evaluation, data quality and gaming, grouping and aggregation, context, stakeholders’ perspectives, and adoption. The highest priority items focused on unique identifiers for scholarly works and for contributors, standards for usage statistics in the form of views and downloads, and building of infrastructure rather than detailed metrics analysis. We are now soliciting feedback on the draft white paper from the wider community prior to its completion. The white paper will then be used as the basis for Phase II: the development of one or more of the proposed standards and recommended practices.”

The White Paper is open for public comment through July 18, 2014. It is available with a link to an online commenting form on the NISO Altmetrics Project webpage (www.niso.org/topics/tl/altmetrics_initiative/), along with the detailed output documents and recordings from each of the meetings and related information resources.

Why universities should care about Altmetrics

Sarah Goodier of OPENUCT Initiative talks about why universities should be taking notice of new developments in scholarly communication and metrics

Not surprisingly, academics don’t feel as if they own this space or have much control over it, so they have to go outside the university to showcase their work and collaborations – which is likely to help them attract recognition, prestige, funding and promotions. - See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Not surprisingly, academics don’t feel as if they own this space or have much control over it, so they have to go outside the university to showcase their work and collaborations – which is likely to help them attract recognition, prestige, funding and promotions. - See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Sarah Academics can and do utilise many Web 2.0 tools and service for research, collaboration and sharing outside of the institutional environment and altmetrics is a part of the toolkit that can be used to measure impact and monitor and assess shared research outputs at all points of the research cycle.
My take on this? For academia to stay up with the fast-paced changes in the digital world, the use of altmetrics is something that institutions should consider supporting and recognising in the near future - to better support academics and help to measure their online visibility as well as the impact of their work online.
- See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Academics can and do utilise many Web 2.0 tools and service for research, collaboration and sharing outside of the institutional environment and altmetrics is a part of the toolkit that can be used to measure impact and monitor and assess shared research outputs at all points of the research cycle.
My take on this? For academia to stay up with the fast-paced changes in the digital world, the use of altmetrics is something that institutions should consider supporting and recognising in the near future - to better support academics and help to measure their online visibility as well as the impact of their work online.
- See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Academics can and do utilise many Web 2.0 tools and service for research, collaboration and sharing outside of the institutional environment and altmetrics is a part of the toolkit that can be used to measure impact and monitor and assess shared research outputs at all points of the research cycle.
My take on this? For academia to stay up with the fast-paced changes in the digital world, the use of altmetrics is something that institutions should consider supporting and recognising in the near future - to better support academics and help to measure their online visibility as well as the impact of their work online.
- See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Academics can and do utilise many Web 2.0 tools and service for research, collaboration and sharing outside of the institutional environment and altmetrics is a part of the toolkit that can be used to measure impact and monitor and assess shared research outputs at all points of the research cycle.
My take on this? For academia to stay up with the fast-paced changes in the digital world, the use of altmetrics is something that institutions should consider supporting and recognising in the near future - to better support academics and help to measure their online visibility as well as the impact of their work online.
- See more at: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/why-universities-should-care-about-altmetrics#sthash.GTIP0anB.dpuf

Top 5 altmetrics trends to watch in 2014

FROM

Openness
Acquisitions by the old guard
More complex modelling
Empowered scientists
Growing interest from administrators and funders

Read more 

Altmetrics could enable scholarship from developing countries to receive due recognition

The Web of Science and its corresponding Journal Impact Factor are inadequate for an understanding of the impact of scholarly work from developing regions, argues Juan Pablo Alperin. 

Alternative metrics offer the opportunity to redirect incentive structures towards problems that contribute to development, or at least to local priorities. But the altmetrics community needs to actively engage with scholars from developing regions to ensure the new metrics do not continue to cater to well-known and well-established networks.

Altmetrics could enable scholarship from developing countries to receive due recognition.

Altmetrics could enable scholarship from developing countries to receive due recognition.

"....The scholarly community is abuzz with altmetrics and the related (but different) term Article Level Metrics......   altmetrics may not remain alternative for long. Whether they supplant or complement the JIF, they bring with them a promise, but no guarantees, for developing regions....."

Academic librarians are encourage to engage with this concept in the interests of promoting the scholarly research of their institutions

Walking the talk - interesting blog post from Kevin Smith of Duke University

Walking the talk:
"All of the presentations at the SPARC Open Access meeting this week were excellent.  But there was one that was really special; an early career researcher named Erin McKiernan who brought everyone in the room to their feet to applaud her commitment to open access.  We are sometimes told that only established scholars who enjoy the security of tenure can “afford” to embrace more open ways to disseminate their work.  But Dr. McKiernan explained to us both the “why” and the “how” of a deep commitment to OA on the part of a younger scholar who is not willing to embrace traditional, toll-access publishing or to surrender her goals of advancing scholarship and having an academic career...."   

 (Thanks to Hilton Green for the alert to this blog post)

Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/07/walking-the-talk/#sthash.qfzGZTwW.dpufKev

(Kevin Smith is Duke's first Scholarly Communications officer - Debbie, Ujala, Roelien and I met him at the Berlin 12 OA conference in Stellenbosh)

All of the presentations at the SPARC Open Access meeting this week were excellent.  But there was one that was really special; an early career researcher named Erin McKiernan who brought everyone in the room to their feet to applaud her commitment to open access.  We are sometimes told that only established scholars who enjoy the security of tenure can “afford” to embrace more open ways to disseminate their work.  But Dr. McKiernan explained to us both the “why” and the “how” of a deep commitment to OA on the part of a younger scholar who is not willing to embrace traditional, toll-access publishing or to surrender her goals of advancing scholarship and having an academic career. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/07/walking-the-talk/#sthash.qfzGZTwW.dpuf

All of the presentations at the SPARC Open Access meeting this week were excellent.  But there was one that was really special; an early career researcher named Erin McKiernan who brought everyone in the room to their feet to applaud her commitment to open access.  We are sometimes told that only established scholars who enjoy the security of tenure can “afford” to embrace more open ways to disseminate their work.  But Dr. McKiernan explained to us both the “why” and the “how” of a deep commitment to OA on the part of a younger scholar who is not willing to embrace traditional, toll-access publishing or to surrender her goals of advancing scholarship and having an academic career. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/07/walking-the-talk/#sthash.qfzGZTwW.dpuf

All of the presentations at the SPARC Open Access meeting this week were excellent.  But there was one that was really special; an early career researcher named Erin McKiernan who brought everyone in the room to their feet to applaud her commitment to open access.  We are sometimes told that only established scholars who enjoy the security of tenure can “afford” to embrace more open ways to disseminate their work.  But Dr. McKiernan explained to us both the “why” and the “how” of a deep commitment to OA on the part of a younger scholar who is not willing to embrace traditional, toll-access publishing or to surrender her goals of advancing scholarship and having an academic career. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/07/walking-the-talk/#sthash.qfzGZTwW.dpuf

All of the presentations at the SPARC Open Access meeting this week were excellent.  But there was one that was really special; an early career researcher named Erin McKiernan who brought everyone in the room to their feet to applaud her commitment to open access.  We are sometimes told that only established scholars who enjoy the security of tenure can “afford” to embrace more open ways to disseminate their work.  But Dr. McKiernan explained to us both the “why” and the “how” of a deep commitment to OA on the part of a younger scholar who is not willing to embrace traditional, toll-access publishing or to surrender her goals of advancing scholarship and having an academic career. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/03/07/walking-the-talk/#sthash.qfzGZTwW.dpuf

Universities can improve academic services through wider recognition of altmetrics and alt-products.

Interesting piece from LSE blog
As altmetrics gain traction across the scholarly community, publishers and academic institutions are seeking to develop standards to encourage wider adoption. Carly Strasser provides an overview of why altmetrics are here to stay and how universities might begin to incorporate altmetrics into their own services. While this process might take some time, institutions can begin by encouraging their researchers to recognize the importance of all of their scholarly work (datasets, software, etc)...........

EBSCO buys Plum™ Analytics

Very interesting development!
 
IPSWICH, Mass. — January 14, 2014 — In a deal that brings together the leading subscription services, database, e-book and discovery provider with the leading provider of alternative research metrics, EBSCO Information Services has acquired Plum^™Analytics. Plum Analytics is the first altmetrics provider to move beyond metrics about articles and track all research output in any form, providing a powerful tool that augments traditional metrics.

Academics’ online presence - should the Library be involved?

Academics’ online presence: A four-step guide to taking control of your visibility 

I was extremely please to discover (via Twitter!)  this excellent guide written by Laura Czerniewisz (a faculty member of UCT's Centre for Higher Education Development) and Sarah Goodier - both from the OpenUCT Initiative. I feel that the Rhodes Library will in future become more involved in assisting academics and senior postgrads to raise their research profiles - this Guide gives an excellent introduction to the topic.  

As some of you know I have been experimenting with tweeting research publications from Rhodes on @RhodesResearch since June last year.  You may like to have a look (the idea is that the Principal Faculty Librarians tweet articles - from the publisher's website - information is gleaned from affiliation alerts which we have set up on various databases). I also provide a monthly blog publication of research from the Science and Pharmacy Faculties (which I have found to be very popular with academics).

 It is early days yet but it will be interesting to see what the future holds in this area.  With the rise of organisations such as Altmetric and Impact Story which facilitate the collection of article level metrics we might well find that this will become an accepted part of our job responsibilities.  On that topic you might like to read the article by Amberyn Thomas  (Manager, Scholarly Publications, University of Queensland Library) which appears in Elsevier's latest LibraryConnect issue

From the introduction to Laura's Guide:
"In today’s digital world, if you use the web, you have an online presence. Online content is exploding; there were 1.8 trillion gigabytes of online information in 2011 and academics are part of that content.  Universities have web pages profiling their stats. Academic networks such as LinkedIn andAcademia.eduare used by researchers around the globe to keep in contact with colleagues and collaborators. In addition, social media are increasingly being used for purposes in addition to ‘social’. It is fair to say that academics want to make a difference;having an influence is almost a job requirement. Research and other outputs need to be found and read, and nowadays that means online. A searcher browsing a topic is likely to use what they find online rather than forage for more in the analogue world. Moreover someone looking for you personally is likely to accept what they find as the full story. This means that academics need to know what is already out there about them, whether they like what they see, and whether their work is actually ‘findable’at all....."

17 Essential Altmetrics Resources (the Library Version)

Compiled by Stacy Konkiel:
“required reading” related specifically to altmetrics and their use in libraries. These articles and blog posts actually comprise a majority of the writing out there on altmetrics in libraries–there’s surprisingly little that librarians have written to date on how our profession might use altmetrics to enhance our work.

 Stacy Konkiel is the Science Data Management Librarian for the IU Libraries--Bloomington. Learn more about data management at http://libraries.iub.edu/data.

View all posts by Stacy Konkiel →

Universities can improve academic services through wider recognition of altmetrics and alt-products

Universities can improve academic services through wider recognition of altmetrics and alt-products

"As altmetrics gain traction across the scholarly community, publishers and academic institutions are seeking to develop standards to encourage wider adoption. Carly Strasser provides an overview of why altmetrics are here to stay and how universities might begin to incorporate altmetrics into their own services. While this process might take some time, institutions can begin by encouraging their researchers to recognize the importance of all of their scholarly work (datasets, software, etc)........ "

Altmetrics Bibliography

Altmetrics Bibliography
The Altmetrics Bibliography includes selected English-language articles and technical reports that are useful in understanding altmetrics.
The "altmetrics" concept is still evolving. In "The Altmetrics Collection," Jason Priem, Paul Groth, and Dario Taraborelli define altmetrics as follows:

Altmetrics is the study and use of scholarly impact measures based on activity in online tools and environments. The term has also been used to describe the metrics themselves—one could propose in plural a "set of new altmetrics." Altmetrics is in most cases a subset of both scientometrics and webometrics; it is a subset of the latter in that it focuses more narrowly on scholarly influence as measured in online tools and environments, rather than on the Web more generally.

This bibliography does not cover books, conference papers, digital media works (such as MP3 files), editorials, e-mail messages, interviews, letters to the editor, presentation slides or transcripts, unpublished e-prints, or weblog postings. Coverage of technical reports is very selective.

Sources have been published from January 2001 through September 2013. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works.

Altmetrics: What, Why and Where?

Everything you need to know about Altmetrics

Altmetrics: What, Why and Where?

by Heather Piwowar, Guest Editor
Altmetrics is a hot buzzword. What does it mean? What's behind the buzz? What are the risks and benefits of using alternative metrics of research impact – altmetrics – in our discovery and evaluation systems? How are altmetrics being used now, and where is the field going?
This special section of the Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology focuses on these questions. Essays from seven perspectives highlight the role of altmetrics in a wide variety of settings.

ImpactStory awarded $300k NSF grant!

has been awarded a $297,500 EAGER grant from the National Science Foundation to study how automatically-gathered impact metrics can improve the reuse of research software.

They will use this to:

•  improve ImpactStory’s ability to track and display the impact of research software.
• use quantitative and qualitative approaches to see if this impact data helps promote actual software reuse among researchers.
• work to build an engaged community of researchers to help support the project