{"id":1231,"date":"2014-08-07T09:49:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T12:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.scielo.org\/en\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2016-01-15T17:39:19","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T19:39:19","slug":"what-can-alternative-metrics-or-altmetrics-offer-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.scielo.org\/en\/2014\/08\/07\/what-can-alternative-metrics-or-altmetrics-offer-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What can alternative metrics \u2013 or altmetrics \u2013 offer us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The prestigious Spanish journal El Profesional de la Informaci<\/em>\u00f3n<\/em> (EPI)\u00b9, has just published in its July \/ August issue four articles dedicated to the topic of \u201calternative metrics\u201d, which are also known as altmetrics.<\/p>\n

EPI is a specialist journal in the field of information science which has been published since 1992 in Spanish and\/or English. It falls into the category of a hybrid open access journal, and as far Spanish language journals are concerned, it is among the top journals as measured by the Impact Factor in both the Journal Citation Reports and Scopus. Three of the articles which we will look at in this post are available in open access.<\/p>\n

The issue begins with an introduction written by Euan Adie, the founder of Altmetric.com. The next article presents the new possibilities offered by altmetrics for data exploration, and the following articles reflect on their possible use in evaluating research. This group of articles concludes with a case study which applies altmetrics to those high impact authors writing in the journal EPI itself.<\/p>\n

Euan Adie\u00b2, who provides the first article in this issue \u2013\u201cTaking the alternative mainstream\u201d<\/em>\u00b3\u2013was one of the invited panelists at the SciELO 15 Years Conference, where he gave a presentation entitled \u201cAltmetrics in practice\u201d. In the same way as he did in the presentation that he gave in S\u00e3o Paulo, his journal article discusses the reasons forthe useof altmetrics to measure the influence that scientific works have on society, and takes the view that altmetrics are complementary to the traditional system of counting citations, since they can be used in much broader contexts. There are many types of impact measurement, not solely bibliometric indicators, since science has repercussions upon the economy, politics, research institutions and upon the public in general.<\/p>\n

The main parties interested in these altmetrics are authors themselves, which makes sense, since it is to be hoped that they will want some indication as to whether what they have written has caught the attention of the public and to what extent. From a practical point of view, the editors of academic journals who provide these altmetrics are giving authors a personal service.<\/p>\n

The challenge presented by this new tool is that altmetrics data is very transitory and difficult to collect and, at the present time, does not yet have clear interpretations. It lacks a generally accepted theoretical framework.<\/p>\n

The following article \u201cAltm<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>tricas para la evaluaci<\/em>\u00f3<\/em>n de la investigaci<\/em>\u00f3<\/em>n y el an<\/em>\u00e1<\/em>lisis de necesidades<\/em> de informaci<\/em>\u00f3<\/em>n<\/em>\u201c<\/em>(Altmetrics: measuring the impact of research output and analyzing information requirements) <\/em>addresses the topic that directly concerns us, namely just how good are the tools which quantify the presence of research on the social web as a complement to the more traditional forms of evaluation by its impact. The major problem is one of the nature and limits of human knowledge. It is also necessary to standardize the procedures for the collection of data in order to guarantee the consistency of altmetrics indicators so that they can be compared, and build a conceptual framework within which to interpret them.<\/p>\n

The major altmetrics services providers are:<\/p>\n