Wiley introduces Altmetrics to its Open Access journals | Exchanges

"In May of last year, Wiley partnered with Altmetric to pilot alternative metrics across a number of subscription and open access journals.  While more traditional measurements – such as citations and usage – assess the scholarly visibility of a paper, alternative metrics are emerging to measure social visibility by tracking online conversations around scientific articles. The results of the pilot were positive. Across the 6 journals included in the initial 6 month trial, 2,183 articles received an Altmetric score, indicating that a high proportion of articles were receiving attention and making an immediate impact.   To date, around 40% of articles from the trial journals have achieved a score of 10 or above – remember, the Altmetric score is based on the number of individuals mentioning a paper, where the mentions occurred (e.g. a newspaper, a tweet) and how often the author of each mention talks about the article. So, the score reflects both the quantity of attention received, and the quality of that attention:  a news story counts for more than a Facebook post; attention from a researcher counts more than attention from an automated Twitter bot.  A major objective of our pilot was to assess reader and author views of altmetrics, and here we were also pleased.  During the pilot we ran a poll of website visitors. 65% felt the metrics were useful with a further 23% indicating that they were somewhat useful. 77% of readers responding to the survey agreed or strongly agreed that altmetrics enhanced the value of the journal article. 50% agreed, or strongly agreed that they were more likely to submit a paper to a journal that supports altmetrics.

In summary, the pilot was a success. As a result, we have now made altmetrics available for all our fully open access journals. During this next phase we will further explore how the extra insights provided by altmetrics can add value to author’s and editor’s experiences ..."