“The rise of altmetrics in measuring scholarly influence
The growing need to demonstrate the value of research is leading academics to use “altmetrics” or non-traditional measures to show the impact of their work, writes the Chronicle of Higher Education. Rather than relying on conventional signs of scholarly influence such as citations, professors are finding it necessary to record how often an article is tweeted, blogged about, mentioned in mainstream media, bookmarked, or viewed on a journal’s website. Jason Priem, who coined the term “altmetrics” in a 2010 Tweet, discusses the growing popularity of altmetrics and whether these measures will eventually become the norm for measuring scholarly impact.” – Source: Academica Top Ten, July 21, 2016, The Academica Group.

More information about how to measure the impact of your research (using metrics) is available at Western Libraries. Their guide “provides an introduction to the metrics used in the evaluation and assessment of research productivity and the tools used to collect these data.”

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