Scholarly Communication and
Publishing Lunch and Learn 9
Using Altmetrics to
Demonstrate Scholarly Impact
Office of Scholarly Communication
and Publishing
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh
Thursday, 27 March 2014
CC BY 3.0
Defining Altmetrics
 Alternative ways of measuring the use and impact
of scholarship
 “Altmetrics are measures of scholarly impact mined
from activity in online tools and environments”
(Jason Priem)
 Altmetrics combines traditional impact measures
(citation counts) with non-traditional measures
 Altmetrics = ALL METRICS
New Measures
 More comprehensive
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Citations
Usage
Captures
Mentions
Social media
 Covers impact of online behavior
– Because scholars increasingly work online
 Measures impact immediately
– Because citation counts take years to appear in literature
Traditional vs. New
• Traditional measures are also
counted
• Findings are complementary
to conventional methods of
measuring research impact
(e.g., H-Index)
• Not intended to replace them
Researcher Impressions
 Altmetrics as a “forecast” of how your scholarly
work will be used by others
– Encouraging for early-career researchers who are waiting for
citation counts but want some indicator of their reach
 Seeing who is using and discussing your work
fosters collaboration and new ideas
– The researcher can get in on the social media conversation
 Gives insight into the “discovery” portion of the
research lifecycle
– How are people discovering my work? How can I discover
new things myself?
The social role of scholars
 Altmetrics has the potential . . .
 “To show the impact of research outside the
scholarly community (i.e., how it may be picked up
by general/non-specialist audiences)”
 “I think this is an important aspect of the
researcher¹s role and altmetrics may give us (for
the first time) some sort of social impact of
research”
– Berenika Webster
Altmetric Tools and Services
 Impact Story
 Altmetric
 PLoS article-level metrics
 Plum Analytics/PlumX
PlumX – http://plu.mx/pitt
 Making research “more assessable
and accessible”
– Gathering information in one place (profiles)
– While scattering and sharing it in other places (widgets)
– Making data intelligible and useful
 Allowing researchers, labs, departments, institutions
to track real-time scholarly impact
 Promoting research, comparing with peers,
connecting with new research
Altmetrics Project Timeline
Spring
2012:
Fall 2012
• First meeting
with Plum
Analytics
• Gathered data
from pilot
participants
Summer
2012:
• Announcement
of Pitt as Plum
Analytics’ first
partner
Spring
2013
• Faculty
surveyed;
enhancements
made
Winter 2013
Fall 2013
• PlumX pilot
system made
public
• IR widget
launched;
rollout
preparations
Pilot Project Participants
• 32 researchers, various
disciplines
• 9 schools
• 18 departments
• 1 complete research group
• Others joined as they
learned about the project
Pilot Project Participants
discipline
school/department
Selected
faculty
participants,
diversified by:
online behavior
level of career
advancement
Key Features
 Faculty profiles
 Online artifacts
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Article
Book
Book chapter
Video, etc.
 Impact graph
 Sunburst
 Widgets
Faculty Profile
Online Artifact Display
Impact Graph
Sunburst
Embeddable Widgets
For researchers, to add to:
• their own Web pages
• department directories
• IR researcher profile page
For individual artifacts,
to build article-level metrics
for imbedding in:
• IR document abstract page
• Article abstract page for
journals we publish
Plum Analytics Widget in e-Journals
• Displays altmetrics for each article
• Piloted in early 2014 by the
International Journal of
Telerehabilitation
• Now live in 10 e-journals;
soon to be available in
all 35
Release the Widgets!
Journals
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http://telerehab.pitt.edu
http://jffp.pitt.edu
http://palrap.pitt.edu
http://biblios.pitt.edu
http://ricoeur.pitt.edu
http://cajgh.pitt.edu
http://hcs.pitt.edu
http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu
http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu
http://bsj.pitt.edu
Repositories
– D-Scholarship@Pitt
Coming soon
– PhilSci Archive
– Archive of European
Integration
– Minority Health and
Health Equity Archive
– Industry Studies
Working Papers
Impact: Full Text, Open Access Article
 Lavasani, M., Gehrmann, S., Gharaibeh, B., Clark, K.,
Kaufmann, R., Péault, B., Goitz, R., & Huard, J. (2011).
Venous graft-derived cells participate in peripheral
nerve regeneration. PloS one, 6(9), e24801.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024801
 http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/13897/
Impact: Citation Only
 Ambrosio, F., Ferrari, R., Distefano, G., Plassmeyer, J.,
Carvell, G., and Deasy, B., Boninger, M., Fitzgerald, G.,
& Huard, J. (2010). The synergistic effect of treadmill
running on stem-cell transplantation to heal injured
skeletal muscle. Tissue engineering. Part A, 16(3), 83949. doi:10.1089/ten.tea.2009.0113
 http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/15959/
Impact: Unrestricted Dissertation
 Clark, Roland. (2012). European Fascists and Local
Activists: Romania's Legion of the Archangel
Michael. Doctoral Dissertation, University of
Pittsburgh.
 http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/11837/
 No restriction; immediate access worldwide
Impact: Restricted Dissertation
 Bateman, Oliver. (2012). Law, Society, and Judicial
Politics: State Supreme Courts and the Pursuit of
Educational Equity. Doctoral Dissertation,
University of Pittsburgh.
 http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/11865/
 Restricted to University of Pittsburgh users only
until June 2015
Future Plans
 Rollout to all Pitt Researchers
– Faculty will edit their own user profiles and add artifacts
– Sign-on will use Shibboleth and can be added to portal
– Plum Analytics is working on Shibboleth compliance
 Automate exchange of records from external systems into
PlumX
– D-Scholarship@Pitt
– Digital Vita or other Research Profiling Systems
– Vendor-supplied data
Your Turn
 What might a researcher say about their impact?
 What issues do you see arising in the use of
altmetrics data?
 Who do you think might be interested in altmetrics
and why?
 How would you “sell” PlumX to faculty? Or would
you?