ImpactStory metrics of academic research outreach piloted by Pensoft Publishers

ImpactStory is an open-source, web-based service that is designed to make it quick and easy to uncover the impact of research output. Being philanthropically-funded and not-for-profit, this project builds on the belief that open altmetrics are key for building the coming era of Web-native science. ImpactStory is committed to working towards open access, free and open data and radical transparency for the future of science.  ImpactStory goes beyond traditional measurements of research output to embrace broader evidence of use, such as social networks, blogs, reference and citation managers, Wikipedia, and more. The tool helps scholars to explore and share the diverse impacts of all their research products—not just journal articles, but also blog posts, datasets, and software. ImpactStory's combination of traditional and innovative approaches aims to bring additional use to the rich Web environment.  The project began its life at the Beyond Impact workshop in 2011, after which a few passionate participants migrated into a hotel hallway to continue working, eventually completing a 24-hour coding marathon to finish a prototype. ImpactStory is now funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and is in the process of incorporating as a non-profit corporation.  The people behind this innovative approach are Heather Piwowar, a leading researcher in the area of research data availability and data reuse, and Jason Priem, who contributed to and created several open-source software projects and who coined the term 'altmetrics'.  'People bookmark and download research articles for a reason,' says Jason. 'Articles that provoke interesting discussions amongst fellow scientists may or may not get cited a lot, but they are still providing important feedback and quality indicators. Additionally, activity in venues like Wikipedia, Twitter, and Delicious provides evidence of broader impacts--evidence that is increasingly important to research funders and administrators.'

'We are glad to be the first to use ImpactStory services and to work together on bringing them to an industry standard. Our authors are happy to see these meaningful icons appearing automatically alongside their articles and summarising, for example, the number of tweets, or Wikipedia articles, in which their work has been mentioned or cited. A tool that certainly has a great future!' says Pror, Lyubomir Penev, founder and managing director of Pensoft Publishers..."