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Research Evidence for Grants and Promotion

A 'how to' guide on information and tools for capturing evidence of, and describing, research outputs.

Altmetric

undefinedAltmetric, or altmetric.com, 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.

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. The colours of the doughnut represent the sources of online mentions.

More information about Altmetrics is available on the online library guide: Altmetrics.

Example statement

“My research has had worldwide reach, and has been mentioned in 192 news outlets including the ABC and The Conversation. My research has also been cited in 38 policy documents." (source: Altmetric Explorer, 6 May 2020) 
“My research on XYZ, published in The Lancet, has received an Altmetric Attention Score of 191, placing it in the top 5% of research outputs scored by Altmetric. It has been mentioned in 24 news stories, 3 blog posts, 8 policy documents and 49 tweets." (source: Altmetric Explorer, 6 May 2020)

More on communication

How to search in Altmetric Explorer

  1. Go to Altmetric Explorer.
  2. Create an account with your RMIT email address the first time you access it.
  3. Choose to search by author's name and receive an 'attention breakdown' for overall research outputs.
  4. Select from the list, or search for a particular paper to then explore the 'Altmetrics Details page' to see the number of times the paper has featured in news stories and blogs, the number of times tweeted or mentions in policy documents.

How to create shareable reports with Altmetric Explorer

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.

 

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Searching by journal/collection in Altmetric Explorer

You can search Altmetric Explorer by journal/collection to determine your research impact.

Example statement

“My research, published in The Conversation, has received a total of 4,335 mentions, with 4,188 mentions in social media such as Twitter, and 143 mentions in news and blogs." (source: Altmetric Explorer, 6 July 2021) 

How to search for metrics for The Conversation

  1. Go to Altmetric Explorer.
  2. Create an account with your RMIT email address the first time you access it.
  3. For complete coverage, select the Full Altmetric database box (top right of screen).
  4. Search for an author's name in either the Verified Author field, or for more results, enter the author's name in the Keywords field instead.
  5. Enter the title of the publication into the Journal or Collection field e.g. The Conversation.
  6. Narrow your search results by including any publication dates if necessary.
  7. Select, Run Search.
  8. The Highlights tab provides a breakdown of total mentions and outputs tracked across social media, news and blogs, policy and patents, as well as a summary of the top outputs.
  9. To review metrics for one output, select the title link from the list of top outputs, or click on 'see all research outputs'.
  10. The Altmetric Details Page displays the output Attention Score, demographics and breakdown by social media and news outlets.

 

 

PlumX metrics

PlumXundefined 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 are embedded in databases such as Scopus, ScienceDirect and EBSCOhost.

PlumX measures the individual works of a researcher dividing the types of interactions into five categories: citations, usage, captures, mentions and social media.

More information about PlumX is available on the online library guide: Altmetrics.

Example statement

"My 2014 paper on XYZ has been cited 22 times, and has also received attention in downloads, news story and social media mentions." (source: Scopus, 5 May 2020)

How to find PlumX metrics in the Scopus database

  1. Go to Scopus
  2. Search for the article
  3. From the results, click on the title to show document details
  4. From the panel on the right-hand side select the arrow near the PlumX Metrics icon
  5. Scroll down to view an overview of the PlumX Metrics or click on 'See details' to go to PlumX for a full summary.
     

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