SOMETHING WIDGET THIS WAY COMES Using Altmetrics to Illustrate the Impact of Open Access on Graduate Student Research John Barnett, University of Pittsburgh Lauren Collister, University of Pittsburgh Jennifer Chan, University of Colorado at Boulder

TODAY’S LEARNING GOALS Understanding the social role of scholars in today’s climate Altmetrics vs. traditional metrics Altmetrics tools and services available Pitt’s pilot project with Plum Analytics Enter the widgets Altmetrics as a lead-in to conversations about scholarly communication Discussion

SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS AT Innovation in scholarly communication Strong advocate of Open Access to research The library as publisher Experience with open repositories, open journals, and open ETDs Now developing other research services Altmetrics and bibliometrics Researcher profiling systems Stay tuned...

THE SOCIAL ROLE OF SCHOLARS Altmetrics has the potential to show the impact of research outside the scholarly community—how it may be picked up by general/non-specialist audiences “I want to reach a wider audience, not just academics, especially since a lot of published articles are not widely available.”- Sharon Quinsaat, graduate student, Sociology “I think this is an important aspect of the researcher¹s role and altmetrics may give us (for the first time) some sort of social impact of research.” – Berenika Webster, Coordinator of Assessment, University of Pittsburgh

THE SOCIABILITY OF EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS Graduate students and ECRs report Writing blog posts about their research and teaching Publicizing their work on social media Finding collaborators via social networks & blogs Sharing papers on Academia.edu, Mendeley, etc. How do we help them manage all of these information streams? The problem becomes “Scholars need to invest a lot of time in social media and dissemination - time that could be used for research!”

DEFINING ALTMETRICS Altmetrics = Alternative ways of measuring the use and impact of scholarship Altmetrics combine traditional impact measures (citation counts) with non-traditional measures Altmetrics = ALL METRICS “Altmetrics are measures of scholarly impact mined from activity in online tools and environments” – Jason Priem, Co-Founder, ImpactStory

NEW MEASURES More comprehensive Citations, usage, social media Covers impact of online behavior Because scholars increasingly work online Measures impact immediately Because citation counts take years to appear in literature “This type of organic, social, self-configuring web of connections looks useful for networking and for identifying people who are interested in your research.” – Bill Price, early career researcher, Linguistics

TRADITIONAL vs. NEW Traditional measures are also counted Complementary to conventional methods of measuring research impact e.g., H-Index Not intended to replace them “…impact factor and citation counts are important, but that's not the only way that information disseminates, and to ignore less formal or currently unrecognized ways of disseminating information demonstrates lack of foresight.” – Jim Fitzpatrick, graduate student, Linguistics “Ultimately, our tools should use the rich semantic data from altmetrics to ask ‘how and why?’ as well as ‘how many?’ – Jason Priem, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth, and Cameron Neylon

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALTMETRICS Article-level metrics written about and discussed beginning in 2009 “Altmetrics” term coined in 2010 Rise of social media in 2010s -> “alternative” and social metrics To learn more: SPARC “Article-level metrics” PLOS “Altmetrics Collection”

CHALLENGES TO ALTMETRICS Prestige & tenure are still locked into Journal Impact Factor Apples, oranges, etc.: A “like” is not the same as a citation How old or new is the work? (The recent nature of social media) Copyright concerns and Open Access Open Access and the researcher fear of being scooped “Researchers must ask if altmetrics really reflect impact, or just empty buzz.” – Jason Priem, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth, Cameron Neylon

BENEFITS More usage statistics available, not just citations Widget & metrics indicate more robust use Show impact for early career faculty & graduate students Good numbers = potential for further publishing, research, and funding Ideological importance “I think that social media is a really important counter- narrative to dominant media institutions.“ – Robert Lawson, ECR, Linguistics "I have had people come up to me at conferences and say that they read some of my papers and then looked me up on social media and found other stuff of mine. I also think that social media has increased the amount my work is cited.“ – Graduate student in Social Work Saying that Open Access to ETDs hurts sales of books that come from them is "bullshit, it's a trap.“ –John Sherer, UNC Press

ALTMETRICS TOOLS AND SERVICES

Pitt and PlumX Allowing researchers, labs, departments, institutions to track real-time impact Promoting research, comparing with peers, connecting with new research Traditional citations & newer metrics Scopus Twitter, Facebook Wikipedia Mendeley

ALTMETRICS ADD VALUE Plum Analytics gives the IR added value by addressing Schöpfel (2013)’s recommendations:  Social media tools  Federated search & sophisticated discovery tools  Usage statistics & metrics Multimedia supplements to theses Print on demand in book format Copyright options including Creative Commons Preservation Schöpfel, Joachim. “Adding Value to Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Institutional Repositories.” D-Lib Magazine 19, no. 3/4 (March 2013). doi: /march2013-schopfel doi: /march2013-schopfel

OUR APPROACH Created records for faculty works in D- Articles, books, book chapters, proceedings Scholarly output with standard identifiers DOI, ISBN, PubMed ID, official URL, etc. Scholarship produced since 2000

ENTER THE WIDGETS Infoboxes containing concise, easy-to-read altmetrics for scholarly works Embeddable Researcher web pages Department directories Article-level metrics embedded in Article abstract page for journals we publish IR document abstract page

PLUM ANALYTICS WIDGET IN E-JOURNALS Displays altmetrics for each article Adds value to our published e-Journals similar to what is expected from PLoS & other larger publishers Piloted in early 2014 by the International Journal of Telerehabilitation Live in all 36 e-journals

PLUM ANALYTICS WIDGET IN D- SCHOLARSHIP Like all libraries, we struggle with populating our IR But we have nearly 6,000 ETDs... Plum displays altmetrics for each record Indicates long-term usage Previously limited to 1-year-only data Indicates research usage, sharing, and “socializing” of scholarship May encourage traffic to & deposits in IR

ETDs at PITT Master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and undergraduate honors theses Required to be in electronic format for all programs since December 2004 graduation Swanson School of Engineering began using ETDs earlier Students can choose to Withhold from public view for 1 year (patent pending) Embargo only to the Pitt community for 1 to 5 years Make available via Open Access immediately serves as official repository

WHY ALTMETRICS MATTER Demonstrate increased use of research, irrespective of discipline Show increased socialization of research, irrespective of discipline Offer a more holistic view of research dissemination and use Illustrate the impact of Open Access on research use and socialization Open conversations about scholarly communication practices and the library’s role

ALTMETRICS AS A CONVERSATION STARTER The web has opened up new opportunities and models for publishing and research sharing (Open Access, repositories, OERs, textbooks...) Making your research available may lead to more collaboration, funding, publishing, etc. Copyright infringement and scooping are possible, but having your work available widely shows you had the idea first Is Journal Impact Factor the best way to indicate research or researcher quality? (DORA) Journal costs are high and can restrict knowledge creation and sharing

YOUR TURN  Do you think graduate students might be interested in altmetrics? Why?  How would you introduce altmetrics and PlumX to graduate students?  What issues do you see arising in the use of altmetrics data for graduate students? For faculty? For others?

SOURCES  Ho, Adrian, and Daniel R. Lee “Recognizing Opportunities: Conversational Openings to Promote Positive Scholarly Communication Change.” College & Research Libraries News 71: Accessed June 5,  Priem, Jason, Dario Taraborelli, Paul Groth, and Cameron Neylon “altmetrics: a manifesto.” Last modified Sept. 28,  Schöpfel, Joachim “Adding Value to Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Institutional Repositories.” D-Lib Magazine 19. doi: /march2013-schopfel.doi: /march2013-schopfel