Seeing The Bigger Research Picture: The benefits of altmetrics data for authors | Against The Grain

"What and why: does article performance data matter? With an uptick in the number of journals being published, journals can now use article performance data to provide added value for researchers to encourage them to publish with their organisation and reward the choice to have so done. This additional value can manifest in different ways, both in raw numbers such as downloads, or more nuanced data such as discussions of an article in policy documents. Collating different types of article performance data allows authors to see rich data associated with their publications. Authors can be rewarded for their community outreach and engagement, seeing payoff for the fruits of their labour. The article performance data also provides a wider picture of how the research is being received and presented online. This allows authors to consider the questions: How are mainstream sources presenting their research? How are laypersons reacting to the research? How are governmental and non-governmental organisations using the research in the “real world”? One facet of article performance data is the collection and presentation of altmetrics. Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, describe non-traditional attention to scholarly outputs. Altmetrics as an idea covers a wide range of types of attention: news stories, shares and mentions on social media, references from government policy documents or patents, and much more. Designed to be complementary to traditional bibliometrics (citations between articles, for example), altmetrics can provide a much more immediate, richer picture of who is engaging with a piece of research, and how it was received...."