Altmetric (from Digital Science) is one of the best-known altmetrics providers. Altmetric tracks where published research is mentioned online by following lists of sources, including social media, news sources, government and non-government reports, blogs, Wikipedia, policy documents etc., and text-mines them for links to research.
To be tracked by Altmetric you need four things:
The research outputs that Altmetric tracks include not just scholarly publications, but also datasets, code and non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) including news media, policy documents, posters, creative practice outputs, websites and more.
"Altmetric" by Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The multi-coloured Altmetric doughnut represents the volume and source of online attention.
The number in the middle of the doughnut is the Altmetric Attention Score, a product of the number of mentions and the quality of the mentions' sources. For example, a mention in online news media scores higher than a Reddit post.
The colours of the doughnut represent the sources of online mentions. For example, blog posts are yellow, X (formerly Twitter) is blue and policy documents are purple. The amount of each colour changes depending on which kinds of sources make up the mentions.
Many databases include the Altmetric Attention Score along with traditional citation metrics.
Altmetric Explorer is a subscription database published by Altmetric, which provides access to their full collection of altmetric data.
Altmetric Explorer lets you search and filter altmetrics by research output, author, publication, team, institution, subject, or keyword. You can explore data by timeline, demographics, mentions, and sources.
Use it to:
When viewing search results in Altmetric Explorer, you'll see several top-level tabs. The Highlights tab shows a summary of total mentions and tracked outputs across social media, news, blogs, policy documents, and patents, along with a list of top outputs.
To view metrics for a specific output, click its title in the top outputs list or select See all research outputs.
The Altmetric Details page displays the output’s Attention Score, audience demographics, and a breakdown of mentions by source (e.g. social media, news outlets).
Image: Copyright © Altmetric Explorer. Used under licence.
You can create a report to share, either as a static PDF or as a dynamic link which is usable even by people without subscription access to Altmetric Explorer. If you share your report via a link the data is live and will update automatically to reflect changes.
See the following resources for detailed instructions:
PlumX Metrics provides both altmetrics and traditional metrics from a variety of sources such as articles, book chapters and conference papers. These metrics shown together provide the user with an overall impact profile in the one location - a link from the database record.
PlumX Metrics measures the individual works of a researcher dividing the types of interactions into five categories:
There are a number of other tools that can be used to find altmetrics, including:
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