data

An Introduction to Altmetric Data – What Can You See?

Altmetrics have been developed over the last few years as a way of monitoring the online conversations around scholarly research. The data can be used alongside traditional indicators of impact, such as the Impact Factor, to see how an article has been received, shared and communicated beyond the the academic sphere. The aim of this introductory blog post is to provide some context around the data and the sources Altmetric (a London-based provider of altmetrics data) tracks, and to explain some of the insights that can be gained by looking at the data.

Interview with Euan Adie, Founder of Altmetric

As scholarly communication and research evaluation processes evolve, new measures and metrics have developed to help better monitor and report on the online activity that surrounds research outputs. Altmetrics, as these new indicators are known, offer a collated record of this online activity for readers and authors to explore and analyze.

Through August and September we will publish a series of posts authored by some of the team at Altmetric, a data science company who provide such attention data to authors, publishers, institutions and funders. The posts will discuss, amongst other topics, using altmetrics within your C.V.s and grant applications, and how journal editors can make use of the tools.

To kick-start the beginning of this special blog series, we decided to go to, well—the source—of Altmetric directly, by asking founder Euan Adie a few questions.