In our Research, Social Media, and Getting Published workshop this term, we discussed shaping and enhancing your online presence in line with standard academic publishing. One of the traditional - and problematic - measures of a journal's visibility, reputation, and overall impact is the 'impact factor' (others metrics include the Hirsch Index and the Eigenfactor).
But what if your research is tweeted, blogged about, frequently uploaded to Mendeley, liked on Facebook, captured with CiteULike etc.? Increasingly, these 'impact factors,' commonly called 'Altmetrics,' are tracked and taken seriously by the academy and academic publishers. Altmetrics are calculated based on an article's (or preprint's) DOI.
As ever, popular interest in research and academic interest in research are different from one another. High volume for social media likely points to a piece of research being controversial (issues regarding gender, climate change, stem cell research etc.), or to it making good headline material, or possibly that it involves sneezing pandas or a puppy wearing a hat. It's important, therefore, to see the location and quality of the buzz. Is the research discussed on academic blogs, uploaded and downloaded frequently from Data Dryad, Mendeley or your institutional repository? That's a good sign.
Interested in more?
#altmetrics on Twitter
A guide to Altmetrics from University of Newcastle library
An Altmetrics bibliography by Charles W. Bailey Jr.
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