1. Make your work accessible

Make all your outputs accessible, early in the research lifecycle, and in a stable location. For material not published under license with an academic publisher (i.e. not journal articles, book chapters), options for hosting outputs include:

2. Use a persistent identifier

Include a persistent identifier for your output in any social media or other dissemination about your research. This means your work is findable, and it also means altmetric aggregators such as Altmetric can track mentions of your work. Commercially published work will usually have an identifier such as a DOI (digital object identifier) or ISBN assigned by the publisher. For work not commercially published, many hosting platforms can mint DOIs, including:

Many other kinds of persistent or unique identifiers might be appropriate and are recognised by Altmetric.

3. Understand what altmetrics are relevant for your research and when

4. Join the conversation

Use altmetrics tools to understand who is talking about your research area, then join in the conversation in social media and on academic platforms.

Use Altmetric Explorer to track public engagement, as well as citations in non-traditional research outputs such as policy, news media and patents.

5. Develop a dissemination plan

Plan communications about your research to maximise engagement by:

• Identify which journals and other outputs get reach.
• Understand who is publishing in your area, what questions and ideas are gaining attention and target your communications.
• Use a platform such as a webpage or your personal blog to link to your research outputs with a plain-language title and explanation. Link to or add associated materials such as datasets, images, videos and blog entries to provide context.
• Understand your non-academic audiences and how to write for sectors such as industry and business, civil society organisations, education and government. See the Library webinar recording on Research Writing for a Broad Audience, or the RMIT Researcher Portal for help on Engagement & Impact (E&I) and on Translating Your Research.
• Do some basic media engagement training to learn how to tell your research story to the public, particularly prior to any publication, so you can be ready with a well-crafted news release.

See also Using Altmetric Explorer to Develop Dissemination Plans: A Guide for Researchers & Institutions.

6. Research Repository and your altmetrics

The Research Repository is indexed by Google Scholar and increases the reach and impact of your non-traditional research outputs by making them citable, shareable and discoverable.

Any research output uploaded and published on the Research Repository is allocated a DOI (digital object identifier), a permanent and unique alphanumeric string which identifies content and provides a persistent link to its online location. A DOI allows others to find your material online and allows online attention to be tracked and counted. Altmetric, for example, can only track and count mentions if they include a DOI linking back to the research output.