Metrics, what metrics?

Abstract

Research articles have traditionally been measured by the proxy measure of the journal Impact Factor, developed by Eugene Garfield in the 1960s. Subsequent advances in technology, media, and ways of scholarly communication have made it possible to trace the impact of an individual article that is published digitally. We have progressed from Gutenberg to the post-Gutenberg era, from print to the digital age, from bibliometrics to altmetrics/ cybermetrics/ webometrics. What do these terms mean? In brief, altmetrics combines data from traditional science dissemination channels and citation counts with other collected from places where scientists, students, policymakers and members of the public talk about science online - for example, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or scholarly networks such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu. Altmetrics expands the meaning of impact, well beyond citations. An article becomes a complex digital object that can be de-constructed into its constituent parts that can also be traced and followed themselves (datasets, audio, video, supplementary material). Examples from the Public Library of Science, Almetric.com, ImpactStory and ReaderMeter among others will illustrate how these new metrics are applied to scientific publications and their components.