Journal of Information and Knowledge (Formerly SRELS Journal of Information Management)

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Altmetrics:Six Years of Changing Scholarly Appraisal


Affiliations
1 Raghunathpur College, P.O. Raghunathpur, Purulia − 723 133, West Bengal, India
2 Department of Library and Information Science, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore − 721 102, West Bengal, India
     

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The last decade of the 20th century was marked as the opening gateway to internet and communication revolution, which added new dimensions to information and knowledge society.  The scholarly community of today’s knowledge society communicates between each other in a non-traditional way besides the traditional way. The arrival of web 2.0 and scientists’ gradual use of said platforms as tools for the diffusion and receipt of scientific information and with part of the scientific community relatively receptive, that scientometrics 2.0 began to be discussed.  Another milestone in the era of scientometrics 2.0 is the ‘Wikimetrics’. After the ‘Wikimetrics’ next footprint comes with the advent of ‘Article-level metrics’. Article-level metrics followed by Altmetrics, i.e. Alternative Metrics. The term altmetrics was coined by Jason Priem in 2010, as a generalization of article level metrics, and ischolar_mained in the twitter #altmetrics hashtag. Although altmetrics usually functions as metrics about articles, but it can also be applied to people, journals, books, data sets, presentations, videos, source code repositories, web pages, etc. Altmetrics does not cover just citation counts, but also other aspects of the impact of a work, such as how many data and knowledge bases refer to it, article views, download, or mentions in social media and news media. In this paper, the altmetric scores of top-cited altmetric papers are presented. Also, the contents of the same are analysed and presented. It is interesting to note that all top-cited papers appeared from diverse subject domains, i.e. big data in science, biological science, medical science, research methodology, social studies, citation studies and scientometrics, different issues involved in social networking et al. The subject domain altmetrics is a highly interdisciplinary field covering all major areas of universe of knowledge. This study reflects other notable feature, i.e. the discord between traditional metric (times cited) and modern metric (altmetric score). 


Keywords

Altmetrics, Altmetric Score, Article-Level Metrics, AS/TC Ratio, Citation Count, Content Analysis, Informetrics, Open Source Metrics, Scholarly Appraisal, Scientometrics, Wikimetrics.
User
About The Authors

Dyuti Samanta
Raghunathpur College, P.O. Raghunathpur, Purulia − 723 133, West Bengal
India

Asst. Professor; Dept. of Library and Information Science

Bidyarthi Dutta
Department of Library and Information Science, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore − 721 102, West Bengal
India

LibrarianRaghunathpur CollegeP.O. RaghunathpurPurulia 723 133, West Bengal, India & Research ScholarDept. of Library and Information ScienceVidyasagar University, MidnaporeW.B. Indiae-mail: dsamantalis@gmail.comMobile: 91-8768780077


Notifications

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  • Altmetrics:Six Years of Changing Scholarly Appraisal

Abstract Views: 478  |  PDF Views: 25

Authors

Dyuti Samanta
Raghunathpur College, P.O. Raghunathpur, Purulia − 723 133, West Bengal, India
Bidyarthi Dutta
Department of Library and Information Science, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore − 721 102, West Bengal, India

Abstract


The last decade of the 20th century was marked as the opening gateway to internet and communication revolution, which added new dimensions to information and knowledge society.  The scholarly community of today’s knowledge society communicates between each other in a non-traditional way besides the traditional way. The arrival of web 2.0 and scientists’ gradual use of said platforms as tools for the diffusion and receipt of scientific information and with part of the scientific community relatively receptive, that scientometrics 2.0 began to be discussed.  Another milestone in the era of scientometrics 2.0 is the ‘Wikimetrics’. After the ‘Wikimetrics’ next footprint comes with the advent of ‘Article-level metrics’. Article-level metrics followed by Altmetrics, i.e. Alternative Metrics. The term altmetrics was coined by Jason Priem in 2010, as a generalization of article level metrics, and ischolar_mained in the twitter #altmetrics hashtag. Although altmetrics usually functions as metrics about articles, but it can also be applied to people, journals, books, data sets, presentations, videos, source code repositories, web pages, etc. Altmetrics does not cover just citation counts, but also other aspects of the impact of a work, such as how many data and knowledge bases refer to it, article views, download, or mentions in social media and news media. In this paper, the altmetric scores of top-cited altmetric papers are presented. Also, the contents of the same are analysed and presented. It is interesting to note that all top-cited papers appeared from diverse subject domains, i.e. big data in science, biological science, medical science, research methodology, social studies, citation studies and scientometrics, different issues involved in social networking et al. The subject domain altmetrics is a highly interdisciplinary field covering all major areas of universe of knowledge. This study reflects other notable feature, i.e. the discord between traditional metric (times cited) and modern metric (altmetric score). 


Keywords


Altmetrics, Altmetric Score, Article-Level Metrics, AS/TC Ratio, Citation Count, Content Analysis, Informetrics, Open Source Metrics, Scholarly Appraisal, Scientometrics, Wikimetrics.

References