Altmetric is an innovative complementary measurement of scientific research impact within the social media arena. Unlike the traditional bibliometrics, which measure journals impact and research citations, altmetric assesses the influence of research in social media portals; such as, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, article downloads, etc. Altmetric is oriented towards societal impact and spread of research articles, datasets or even grey literature among the internet users. The new metric is also more instant than traditional bibliometrics, for example h-index takes years to be calculated. On the other hand, Altmetric reflects authors’ new publications impact in months, weeks or even days. This factor helps authors receive recognition promptly in case they have published their work recently. In addition, Altmetric helps institutions showcase the impact of its research on the community, analyze research strength and areas of improvement, and attract funders and grants. As a researcher, altmetric would be an indicator of much your research is getting attention in social media portals with detailed information about where your audience is and who they are, which reflects the visibility of your research.
Learn more about Altmetric
http://www.altmetric.com/
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/
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Omnia Abdallah
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Omnia Abdallah is the 2016 Center for Scholarly Communication intern, and an SBU MBA student. Her professional experience includes work at the peer-reviewed open access press, Hindawi Publishing.
