Altmetric Blog

Last year on Halloween it was the asteroid headed for earth that caught the attention of scientists. Disaster averted, we’ve plunged into the Altmetric database to see what’s in stall for this year…. Hold on tight to your broomsticks! The psychology of fright and Halloween horrors Trick or treat? This research looks at why we seek out experiences that we know will expose us to dread, disgust and terror, and examines what influences enjoyment of horror movies. The authors found that people who find horror appealing tend to enjoy heavy metal … Read More

The following post was written by Dylan Parker, Associate Publisher at BioMed Central, and can also be read on the BioMed Central blog. Promoting the broadest possible public access to published research is the core mission of any open access publisher worthy of an author’s time and consideration. If we are to meet the call for “concrete steps to open up research” driven by this year’s Open Access Week, however, we have to support authors, their advocates and institutions in understanding the impact of the research as it occurs. This means providing measures of article usage from the standard citation, downloads … Read More

Earlier this month, I had a great experience at the Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute, where I had the chance–along with a team of brilliant humanities researchers and librarians–to think through what “humane” metrics (HuMetrics) for the humanities and social sciences might look like. What we discussed at this meeting has been a revelation. Though it’s an idea that’s still in its infancy, the concept of HuMetrics is starting to change the way I think about how metrics should be selected and applied in academia. Simply put, I’m starting to see that academia’s been approaching evaluation metrics from the … Read More

This post is authored by Kalmer Lauk, a Bibliometrics Specialist at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Kalmer presented research similar to this post at the 3:AM Conference in late September 2016. To view the related poster, visit [goo.gl/dHEKco]. A few months ago I was walking home from an altmetrics seminar, when I remembered an article in Scientometrics that analyzed publications in the field of dance (Ho et al. 2015). The authors analyzed the distribution of words in article titles to see how the field had changed through the years. I also remembered a similar analysis I did for … Read More

The following post was written by Amy Rees, Customer and Sales Support Specialist at Altmetric. Public outreach is becoming increasingly important for researchers going up for tenure. But how can you document the effects your engagement efforts are having? Altmetrics have been suggested in the past, but is it even possible to shoehorn that kind of newfangled data into a traditional promotion and tenure dossier format? Though not yet well-known, we’re learning that using altmetrics in one’s promotion and tenure dossier is a valuable way to provide hard evidence that online engagement strategies are working to connect researchers with the … Read More

We’re pleased to announce this month’s Altmetric Ambassador of the Month: Cristina Huidiu, co-organizer of the recent successful 3:AM altmetrics conference in Bucharest, Romania. We recently emailed with Cristina to learn her thoughts on advocating for altmetrics in a bibliometrics-focused higher ed environment, highlights from the recent 3:AM altmetrics conference, and her vision for the future of altmetrics. Tell us about your career to date–what have you been working on in recent years, as a librarian interested in altmetrics? As a librarian for the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila Bucharest Library, I focused on helping researchers understand how … Read More

Here at Altmetric, we speak to a lot of publishers, and whilst they each have their own particular use case, there are two questions that often come up: What do authors think of the data Altmetric provides? How can we help get more attention for our content? In this blog post I’m going to look at a few recent surveys, studies and examples that go some way to addressing these questions.   What do authors think of the data Altmetric provides? The answer to this question seems to evolve … Read More

This year’s 3:AM was held in Bucharest, where the sun still beamed warmly with complete disregard that we were in the depths of September. The conference was two days where we heard many people present give their progress reports, research findings, and hopes and dreams for altmetrics. Here are some of the big topics from the week. What is the take-up of Altmetrics? There were a number of surveys asking people this, and whilst many of the responses to surveys were in low numbers, they’re beginning to show some useful insights. Dan Penny … Read More

Welcome to the Altmetric High Five! On a monthly basis, my High Five posts examine a selection of the most popular research outputs Altmetric has seen attention for that month. This month’s most popular research papers study objects that span from tiny brain plaques, to the oldest known microbes, to the world’s tallest mammal. It’s a month of extremes, in both objects of scientific discovery as well as occasionally science news headlines.     Histopathologic image of senile plaques seen in the cerebral cortex of a person with Alzheimer’s disease of presenile onset. Image credit: KGH/Wikipedia Paper #1. Cautious Hope … Read More

Ever wonder how you, as a librarian, can use altmetrics in your day-to-day work? I, along with my colleagues (and fellow librarians) Natalia Madjarevic and Amy Rees, certainly have! While there’s no shortage of excellent altmetrics primers for librarians in existence, we saw a need for a resource to help librarians who want to apply altmetrics in their own work. This ebook provides the “nuts and bolts” needed to use altmetrics in a variety of library-land scenarios, including: Making collection development decisions Managing institutional repositories Helping faculty assemble evidence for their tenure & promotion packets Teaching workshops … Read More