internet resources

Robin Chin Roemer and Rachel Borchardt From to altmetrics A changing scholarly landscape

hen future Science Index founder files that manage, calculate, and track cita- WEugene Garfield first came up with the tion data such as h-index and i10-index (i.e., idea of journal in 1955, it never number of articles with at least ten ). occurred to him “that it would one day become Using a statistical model based on author and the subject of widespread controversy.”1 article metadata to identify relevant citations, Today, techniques for measuring scholarly the service offers the option of automatically impact—traditionally known as bibliometrics adding new articles to users’ public or pri- —are well known for generating conflict and vate profiles. Google also recently launched concern, particularly as tenure-track scholars a related service, Metrics, reach beyond previously set boundaries of that gauges the “visibility and influence” discipline, media, audience, and format. From of articles and publications from 2007 to the development of more nuanced academic 2011, based on Google Scholar citation specialties to the influence of blogs and social data. Access: http://scholar.google.com/intl media, questions about the scope of scholarly /en/scholar/citations.html. impact abound, even as the pressure to measure • SCImago Journal and Country Rank. such impact continues unabated or increases. SCImago is a free Web site that runs on Sco- As faculty at universities around the world pus data to calculate two metrics: SCImago struggle to find new ways of providing evi- Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized dence of their changing scholarly value, many Impact per Paper (SNIP), which compare librarians have stepped forward to help nego- directly to Web of Knowledge’s Impact Fac- tiate the landscape of both traditional impact tor. SJR is based on times cited, but also uses metrics, such as h-index and journal impact an algorithm similar to Google’s PageRank factor, and emerging Web-based alternatives, to calculate article influence, which it uses sometimes called altmetrics, cybermetrics, or to create rankings. Using SCImago’s online webometrics. With interest in online venues for interface, users can compare rankings of up scholarly communication on the rise, and the to ten journals at a time, display top journals, number of tools available for tracking online and even display countries with influential influence growing steadily, librarians are in journals in a discipline. Access: http://www. a key position to take the lead in bolstering SCImagojr.com. researchers’ knowledge of current trends—and • . Scopus is a subscription da- concerns—in the new art and science impact tabase known primarily as an alternative measurement. Robin Chin Roemer is communication librarian at American University, e-mail: [email protected], General resources and Rachel Borchardt is science librarian at American • Google Scholar Citations. This free University, e-mail: [email protected] Google service allows authors to create pro- © 2012 Robin Chin Roemer and Rachel Borchardt

C&RL News November 2012 596 to Web of Knowledge, as it offers similar through the aggregation of online article, author, and journal-level metrics, but altmetrics. Users create collections of materi- uses slightly different algorithms to calculate als through online identifiers, such as Google them. Metrics include standard options such Scholar Profiles, DOIs, and PubMed IDs. as times cited and h-index, as well as original Impact Story uses more than a dozen APIs to offerings like SJR and SNIP from SCImago. search for metrics on these collected items, Scopus recently launched “ for with sources ranging from popular social Scopus,” a third party application that runs media to scholarly tools like and within the sidebar of Scopus pages to track PLoS. Items are subsequently assigned impact mentions of papers across social media sites, categories, such as generally/highly “saved,” science blogs, media outlets, and reference “cited,” “recommended,” or “discussed.” managers. Access: http://www.scopus.com. This resource is most useful for researchers • Web of Knowledge. This Thomson publishing in nontraditional venues or with Reuters subscription database helped usher scholarship too new to have accumulated in modern bibliometrics with its introduction traditional citations. Not a comprehensive of the h-index in 1982. Web of Knowledge source for tracing Web impact. Access: http:// includes , for article and au- impactstory.it/. thor queries, and Journal Citation Reports, for journal queries. Its metrics include times cited, h-index, impact factor, , and field-based journal rankings. While many of these metrics have been criticized for not • PLoS Article Level Metrics. Public fully representing scholarly value in certain Library of Science (PLoS) has emerged as disciplines, they are still considered the gold the leading journal repository, standard in traditional bibliometrics. Access: in part due to its high traditional impact fac- http://www.webofknowledge.com. tors. However, PLoS offers an alternative to traditional impact in the form of Article Level Altmetric resources Metrics, which track the influence of indi- • Altmetrics.org. This free Web site is a vidual PLoS articles, from times downloaded central hub for information about the grow- to mentions in social media and blogs. PLoS ing altmetrics movement, which it defines as also tracks internal article metrics, including “the creation and study of new metrics based comments, notes, and ratings. While a valu- on the Social Web for analyzing and inform- able resource for impact, only PLoS articles ing scholarship.” Cofounded by prominent benefit from its metrics. Nevertheless, this figures in the world of bibliometrics, such as resource represents an important new avenue Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar, altmetrics. for metrics, which future publishers will likely org maintains links to new online tools for replicate. Available for free online. Access: calculating impact. Other prominent features http://article-level-metrics.PLoS.org/. include an altmetrics “manifesto” that argues • . Anne-Wil Harzing how altmetrics can improve existing scholarly created Publish or Perish (PoP) to assist fac- filters. Access: http://altmetrics.org. ulty looking for more diverse bibliometrics. PoP is a free, downloadable program that harvests data from Google Scholar based on author name. Users can manually remove records to refine the data, similar to what is now offered by Google Scholar Citations. • Impact Story. Formerly known as PoP can also calculate numerous metrics, Total Impact, Impact Story is a free open including alternatives to the h-index. How- source tool designed to support URL-based ever, because few people are familiar with

November 2012 597 C&RL News non h-index calculations, it is up to users its users hail. However, with the integration to explain such metrics to larger audiences. of Mendeley data into more altmetrics tools, Access: http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm. it will likely become popular with other dis- • ReaderMeter. ReaderMeter is a free ciplines, too. Mendeley is free with for-cost tool that “crowdsources” impact by process- storage upgrades, and available both online ing readership data from Mendeley. Cre- and as a download. Access: http://www. ated by Dario Taraborelli of the Wikimedia mendeley.com. Foundation, it contrasts with traditional • Social Science Research Network bibliometric tools in its focus on readership, (SSRN). SSRN is an online article repository, not citation. The site functions by compiling recently listed number one in the Web of reports based on authors’ names, which are World Repositories’ rankings for 2012. It en- subsequently processed through the Mende- compasses three key features: an database of ley API. Each report highlights information more than 400,000 abstracts, a large electronic such as an author’s “HR-Index,” “GR-Index,” paper collection, and 20 specialized subject “Total Bookmarks,” and “Top Publications networks through which registered users by Readership.” ReaderMeter has been by can promote their work and connect to free criticized some in the altmetrics community abstracts and articles. Though praised for its for drawing data exclusively from Mendeley.2 ability to facilitate discovery of scholarship, However, plans exist to integrate data from SSRN has also been criticized for the strictness multiple reference management sites, such of its policies, which some see as stifling in as CiteULike. Access: http://readermeter.org/. comparison to emerging scholarly networks. Still, its site-specific metrics for “top papers,” Scholarly peer networks “top authors,” and “top institutions” remain • Academia.edu. Academia.edu is a free key to social science faculty. Access: http:// online paper-sharing platform that encour- www.ssrn.com. ages academics to increase their visibility • VIVO. VIVO is a free, downloadable and monitor research within and across its semantic Web application designed to facili- scholarly network. With nearly 2 million tate research collaboration both within and profiles and 1.5 million uploaded papers, between institutions. Originally developed academia.edu has become a popular player at Cornell, it invites institutions to upload in the world of online repositories. Impact data related to faculty profiles, which it metrics for the site are similar to those of- crawls in order to draw meaningful connec- fered by many blogs, and include profile tions between researchers. VIVO doesn’t views, document views, and country-based directly support user-centered metrics, but page traffic. In another increasing trend for has the potential to be a powerful tool in scholarly networks, the site also offers fea- collecting university-level research metrics. tures geared toward social interaction, such To date, only a few large institutions have as user statuses and an “ask a question” tool. implemented VIVO, as it requires significant Access: http://www.academia.edu/. programming knowledge and commitment. • Mendeley. Mendeley is a relatively Access: http://vivoweb.org. recent startup from the same company that created Last.fm. It combines a citation man- Blogs and media ager with a scholarly social network to create • Citation Culture. This two-year-old a comprehensive research portal. Researchers blog is the creation of Paul Wouters, director with profiles can chart views and downloads of the Centre for Science and Technology of their research through the portal, join Studies at Leiden University (LU). Authored groups, and view popular articles within by Wouter and a fellow LU professor, the their fields. Mendeley has gained particular blog is dedicated to discussion of academic traction in the sciences, from which most of impact, from citation analysis to the broader

C&RL News November 2012 598 evaluation of research across universities. between article downloads and citations. Recent multipart posts have touched on Access: http://ebrp.elsevier.com/index.asp. topics, such as humanities bibliometrics • OII Toolkit for the Impact of Digi- and scholarly altmetrics. While information tised Scholarly Resources. This JISC- on the site is excellent and detailed, posts funded toolkit was developed by the Oxford are published sparingly, at a rate of one to Internet Institute to help authors, publishers, two per month. Access: http://citationculture. and librarians, learn more about measuring wordpress.com/. the impact of digital scholarship. The Web • Jason Priem’s Web site. Jason Priem site is divided into three sections: case stud- is a Ph.D. candidate at University of North ies, quantitative methods, and qualitative Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Information methods. The two latter sections define and and Library Science and the cofounder of discuss methodological subcategories, such Impact Story. Priem has emerged as one of as bibliometrics/ and content the strongest advocates for altmetrics, and analysis. Contributions to the toolkit are a champion for library involvement. His encouraged in the form of articles and com- interests touch on a variety of altmetrics ments, which can be submitted after creating topics, including the future of scientific com- a free user account. Access: http://microsites. munication, the open data movement, and oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/welcome. author’s rights. As the emerging altmetrics landscape continues to move forward, ex- Organizations, conferences, and pect Priem to be at the front. Access: http:// electronic lists jasonpriem.org/. • ACM Web Science Conference. The • Scholarly Kitchen. Established by the Web Science Conference is dedicated to the Society for Scholarly Publishing, Scholarly study of socio-technical relationships that Kitchen is a moderated blog that presents shape and engage with the Web. An official ideas on current topics of scholarly publish- ACM conference since 2011, Web Science ing and communication. While not strictly brings together computer scientists with re- focused on bibliometrics, many of the site’s searchers from the social sciences, humani- “chefs” boast expertise in the intersection ties, and law. Each conference has included between impact and publishing. The site a major workshop on the impact of the Web also offers useful category filters such as on scholarly communication—including this “Metrics & Analytics,” which includes more year’s “Altmetrics12” workshop, run by af- than 280 posts and counting. Access: http:// filiates of altmetrics.org. Access: http://www. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/. websci12.org/. • ASIST SIGMETRICS. This electronic Bibliometrics research support list covers bibliometrics and altmetrics from • Bibliometrics Research a LIS perspective. Posts are equal parts Program (EBRP). EBRP was designed by information/announcement and discussion Elsevier as a way for bibliometrics research- of factors related to bibliometrics, such as ers to gain access to large amounts of data open access or “gaming” metrics systems. for free. Available data includes publication This electronic list is a great option for metadata from Scopus, usage data, and full- those interested in bibliometrics culture or text data from ScienceDirect. Researchers in networking with bibliometrics specialists. apply for the data, and successful applicants Includes a searchable archive. Access: http:// receive a dataset specifically designed for web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html. their project by Elsevier. Examples of suc- • International Society for Sciento- cessful projects on the site are especially metrics and Informetrics (ISSI). ISSI is useful to those who are interested in current a major society dedicated to the study of altmetrics topics, such as the relationship bibliometrics, particularly in the sciences.

November 2012 599 C&RL News Highlighted features include a biannual con- Kear, R. & Colbert-Lewis, D. (2011). “Cita- ference, abstracts of bibliometric journals, tion searching and bibliometric measures.” and a electronic list. Librarians interested College & Research Libraries News, 72 (8), in detailed analyses of bibliometrics should 470-474. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org look to this site for a wealth of information. /content/72/8/470.full.pdf+html Access: http://www.issi-society.info. Naik, G. (2012, August 24). “Journals’ ranking system roils research.” Wall Street Articles for further reading Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj. Howard, J. (2012, February 28). “Track- com/article/ SB10000872396390444082904 ing scholarly influence beyond the impact 577609313125942378.html factor.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/ Notes wiredcampus/ tracking-scholarly-influence- 1. E. Garfield, “Journal Impact Factor: beyond-the-impact-factor/35565 A Brief Overview,” Canadian Medical Henning, V. & Gunn, W. (2012, September Association Journal 161(8), 979–80, re- 6). “Impact factor: Researchers should define trieved August 21, 2012, from www.cmaj.ca the metrics that matter to them.” Guardian. /content/161/8/979 Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk 2. Björn Brembs, “Check out Reader- /higher-education-network/blog/2012 Meter,” Björn Brembs Blog, http://bjoern. /sep/06/mendeley-altmetrics-open-access brembs.net/comment-n643.html, accessed -publishing September 19, 2012.

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