Altmetrics: New Indicators for Scientific Communication in Web 2.0

TL;DR

This paper reviews altmetrics, new Web 2.0-based indicators for measuring scientific impact, comparing them with traditional metrics, and analyzing their potential and limitations in research evaluation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of altmetrics, their platforms, and their correlation with traditional citation metrics, highlighting their role and challenges in research assessment.

Findings

Altmetrics correlate with traditional citation impact.

Most cited papers also have high altmetric scores.

Altmetrics face limitations in accurately measuring impact.

Abstract

In this paper we review the socalled altmetrics or alternative metrics. This concept raises from the development of new indicators based on Web 2.0, for the evaluation of the research and academic activity. The basic assumption is that variables such as mentions in blogs, number of twits or of researchers bookmarking a research paper for instance, may be legitimate indicators for measuring the use and impact of scientific publications. In this sense, these indicators are currently the focus of the bibliometric community and are being discussed and debated. We describe the main platforms and indicators and we analyze as a sample the Spanish research output in Communication Studies. Comparing traditional indicators such as citations with these new indicators. The results show that the most cited papers are also the ones with a highest impact according to the altmetrics. We conclude pointing out the main shortcomings these metrics present and the role they may play when measuring the research impact through 2.0 platforms.