Altmetrics (Chapter from Beyond Bibliometrics: Harnessing Multidimensional Indicators of Scholarly Impact)

Abstract

This chapter discusses altmetrics (short for "alternative metrics"), an approach to uncovering previously-invisible traces of scholarly impact by observing activity in online tools and systems. I argue that citations, while useful, miss many important kinds of impacts, and that the increasing scholarly use of online tools like Mendeley, Twitter, and blogs may allow us to measure these hidden impacts. Next, I define altmetrics and discuss research on altmetric sources--both research mapping the growth of these sources, and scientometric research measuring activity on them. Following a discussion of the potential uses of altmetrics, I consider the limitations of altmetrics and recommend areas ripe for future research.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 14 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.