Altmetrics

Altmetrics refers to ways of measuring the use and impact of scholarship beyond citations. Altmetrics aims to capture a more complete picture of scholarly impact by counting and analyzing usage of scholarly work in mediums like:

  • Views and downloads from online repositories and databases
  • Sharing through social media (for example, Facebook and Twitter)
  • Citations and discussions in blogs and wikis
  • Mentions and comment counts (for example, on Reddit)
  • Holdings in library collections

Find out more about the sources for altmetrics from PlumX's helpful guide. Additionally, altmetrics can be used to understand the research impact of scholarly works that aren't captured through citation counts, such as

  • Figures and images
  • Reports
  • Data sets
  • Books and book chapters
  • Proceedings
  • Presentations and slides

Because it can take years to accumulate citations in scholarly literature, altmetrics provides more timely usage data for real-time reporting of scholarly impact.

For more information on altmetrics and PlumX, visit our Altmetrics guide.
Contact us for help, feedback, and consultations about altmetrics.