February 28, 2022
Have you ever wondered what kind of attention your recently published paper got in the academic community, before the first citations occurred in other literature? Or what coverage it received outside academia without you noticing? You may not have missed a tweet, but what about media, blogs, or policy papers that mention your publication? In fact, you may be aware of some buzz around your latest publication on a hot topic – but could you ever present that in a serious way in your current research funding proposal? And can something like that even be captured in a structured way, or even measured?
The answer is yes – look no further! We have just the tool for you!
Starting in 2022, UVic Libraries is providing access to Altmetric Explorer, which serves exactly these purposes (and many more).
What is Altmetric Explorer?
Altmetrics, in the broader sense, are a way to measure impact by capturing online mentions of research outputs such as papers and datasets. Altmetric Explorer, Plum Analytics and Impactstory are some popular altmetrics tools, and the Library has recently purchased a subscription to Altmetric Explorer.
Using Altmetric Explorer to improve visibility of your work?
Altmetric Explorer is an online tool that searches the web for “online attention” of research outputs. It captures the attention for all types of research outputs including theses and dissertations, datasets, software and code, media files, etc. Altmetric Explorer pulls data from:
- Public policy documents
- Mainstream media
- Post-publication peer-review platforms (Pubpeer and Publons)
- Wikipedia
- Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc)
- Multimedia platforms (YouTube, Stack Overflow, etc)
- Patents
- Open Syllabus Project
- Blogs & Research Highlights (Faculty Opinions)
- Online reference managers (Mendeley)
The overall attention accumulates into an algorithm that calculates the Altmetric Score and provides a visualization (the “Altmetric donut“).
Altmetric Explorer is a powerful tool that can provide contextual information when documenting the impact of your work in CVs, tenure & promotion dossiers, or grant and job applications. Not only does it provide insight into the attention your work receives, it also closes a gap where traditional metrics tend to be in the dark, by covering immediate attention.
The tool helps to answer questions about your output such as “Was my work covered by any news outlets?” – “Are other researchers commenting on my work?” – “Which countries are looking at my publications?” – “Was any of my scientific output cited in any policy documents or patents?” or “How does attention of my open access publications compare to those published in closed access?”.
As an additional feature, the Altmetric Score will be displayed for all content in our repository UVicSpace.
Learn more through our libguide
Attend one of our upcoming workshops!
- March 16, 2022 from 12 – 1pm
- March 28, 2022 from 11am – 12pm
