Altmetrics : a practical guide for librarians, researchers and academics
by
Meaningful Metrics
by
Research Assessment in the Humanities
by
This book analyses and discusses the recent developments for assessing research quality in the humanities and related fields in the social sciences. Research assessments in the humanities are highly controversial and the evaluation of humanities research is delicate. While citation-based research performance indicators are widely used in the natural and life sciences, quantitative measures for research performance meet strong opposition in the humanities. This volume combines the presentation of state-of-the-art projects on research assessments in the humanities by humanities scholars themselves with a description of the evaluation of humanities research in practice presented by research funders. Bibliometric issues concerning humanities research complete the exhaustive analysis of humanities research assessment. The selection of authors is well-balanced between humanities scholars, research funders, and researchers on higher education. Hence, the edited volume succeeds in painting acomprehensive picture of research evaluation in the humanities. This book is valuable to university and science policy makers, university administrators, research evaluators, bibliometricians as well as humanities scholars who seek expert knowledge in research evaluation in the humanities.
Altmetrics is used to refer to "alternative metrics" which measure the online impact of scholarly and creative works - generally at the article level. Altmetrics attempts to fill a gap in more traditional metrics by using a wider range of sources, such as social media, news outlets, blog posts, and citation managers, in addition to citation and download counts to determine the impact (or "attention") of scholarship.
You can find altmetrics in a variety of places, including on journal publisher sites (like Taylor & Francis and Wiley), repository sites (like PubMed Central and UNLV's institutional repository), and even some databases (like Scopus). Check out the chart below for a detailed comparison of altmetrics and traditional metrics.
Altmetric Explorer is a database that is used to track altmetrics, based on the digital object identifier (DOI) or persistent URL of a publication. The publications that it tracks include e-books, patents, policy documents, journal articles, and virtually anything with a DOI attached from known sources (such as CrossRef).
UNLV researchers have access to this database through the University Libraries databases. Create your account and login using your institutional (@unlv.edu) email address.
You can request a one-on-one or small group consultation, or a demo of this database by reaching out to Christina Miskey, Research Impact Librarian, at christina.miskey@unlv.edu.
The table below provides a quick preview of what type of information you can utilize from various sites that showcase traditional metrics or alternative metrics (or both). For more information on each metric and how to obtain it, please refer to the Bibliometrics and Altmetrics Guide.
| Journal Citation Reports | Scopus | Web of Science | Google Scholar | Dimensions | Impact Story | Altmetric Explorer | PlumX Analytics | Digital Scholarship @UNLV | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metrics for: | |||||||||
| Articles | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Authors | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Institutions | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| Countries | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Journals | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Traditional metrics: | |||||||||
| Citations | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Alternative metrics: | |||||||||
| Views / Downloads | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Bookmarks | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
| Blogs | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
| News media | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| X (Twitter) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||
| Coverage: | |||||||||
| Sciences | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Medicine | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Social Sciences | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Humanities** | |||||||||
| Multidisciplinary | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| Transparency | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| Access: | |||||||||
| Free | ✔ | ✔* | ✔ | ✔* | ✔ | ||||
| Registration necessary | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||
| Subscription required | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
Information for this section was inspired by the Universiteit Utrecht Research Impact & Visibility Research Guide.