Altmetrics: New indicators for scientific communication in Web 2.0

Abstract

In this paper we review the socalled altmetrics or alternative metrics. This concept raises from the development of new indicators based on Web 2.0, for the evaluation of the research and academic activity. The basic assumption is that variables such as mentions in blogs, number of twits or of researchers bookmarking a research paper for instance, may be legitimate indicators for measuring the use and impact of scientific publications. In this sense, these indicators are currently the focus of the bibliometric community and are being discussed and debated. We describe the main platforms and indicators and we analyze as a sample the Spanish research output in Communication Studies. Comparing traditional indicators such as citations with these new indicators. The results show that the most cited papers are also the ones with a highest impact according to the altmetrics. We conclude pointing out the main shortcomings these metrics present and the role they may play when measuring the research impact through 2.0 platforms

Las revistas científicas como plataformas para publicar la investigación de excelencia en educación: estrategias para atracción de investigadores

“…La selección de artículos por el editor, las entrevistas a investigadores, las mesas redondas de expertos y las píldoras audiovisuales de presentación de secciones en la revista, entre otras tácticas posibles, pueden hacer las contribuciones más visibles. Según Torres, Cabezas & Jiménez (2013), las altmetrics o indicadores alternativos que están surgiendo para el estudio del impacto de las publicaciones científicas tienen en cuenta las menciones en blogs, el número de twits o el de personas que guardan un artículo en su gestor de referencias. Comunicar ha puesto en marcha su sección de Métricas en todos sus artículos siendo pionera en España en la visibilización de los multiimpactos.…”

Scholarly social media profiles and libraries

“…There seems to be a correlation between traditional and alternative metrics. Recent study results show that the most cited articles within recent years also have significantly higher altmetrics indicators (Torres-Salinas et al, 2013).…”

“…Several studies have investigated alternative metrics and their relationship with traditional citation indicators (Bornmann, 2014;Ortega, 2015;Torres-Salinas et al, 2013), and found statistically significant associations between higher metric scores and higher citations for articles in six of the eleven altmetric (Twitter, Facebook wall posts, research highlights, blogs, mainstream media and forums) in medical and biological sciences and for articles with at least one altmetric mention (Eysenbach, 2011;Thelwall et al, 2013).…”

“…The literature tends to be concerned with impact measures rather than scholarly communication itself or scholarly communication networks (Thelwall, Haustein, Larivière, & Sugimoto, 2013). Several studies analyse the relationship between traditional and alternative measures of scholarly reputation, (Ortega, 2015;Torres-Salinas, Cabezas-Clavijo, & Jiménez-Contreras, 2013;Weller & Strohmaier, 2014), and the implications of altmetrics on academic and research libraries (Rodgers & Barbrow, 2013). In contrast, there is surprisingly little research about the scholarly social network platforms themselves, and there is even less literature on researcher profiles and the impact of these profiles on scholarly communication, collaboration, and research.…”

Incertidumbres fundamentales desde el territorio

“…For example, the discussed case of the impact factor that, as indicated by Borrego and Urbano (2006), is sometimes misused as it is equated to the quality of the publication, of its contents and/or of its relevance, when the meanings of the knowledge produced locally tend to change with the very context in which it is interpreted, and its "utility" tends to have different value depending on the type of users, especially if they don´t belong to hegemonic economic circles. Disagreements and arguments raised in the international scientific community have brought to the proposal of designing alternative metrics to measure the impact beyond the citation, such as the online use, the visits to the document or the links in social networks, or its use as a source of information for new apprentices as the authors Torres-Salinas et al, (2013), or Alperin (2014, have suggested. In that sense, the criticism to the excessive power that the information systems are taking in the evaluation of scientific production, has been exposed in various forums in which analysis has been questioned under the functionalist logic behind the principles of operation of the databases, concentrating in those of the Web of Science (WoS).…”