Almetrics stands for “alternative metrics.”¹ The Altmetric Attention Score is an indicator of the attention an academic article is getting. As an author, you might be curious about the Altmetric score and how altmetrics can help you. It differs from the more traditional impact factor, which uses citation counts in scholarly information sources. Fundamentally, Altmetrics measures the use of your research article beyond citations.

What exactly is it?

Altmetrics monitors a variety of sources for mentions of research to measure use in different ways:²

• Public policy documents: they check global public policy sources for references to published research
• Social media: Facebook and Twitter mentions are tracked
• Wikipedia: all 31 language versions are checked for citations, new mentions, and edits
• Open Syllabus Project: tracks course syllabi of over 4,000 global institutions
• Mainstream media: monitors coverage from over 4,000 outlets around the world
• Post-publication peer review platforms: evaluate contributor outputs on Publons
• Patents: track patent references from nine international patents offices
• Blogs: monitors over 9,000 blogs, both academic and nonacademic, daily
• Research highlights: check for research recommendations from Faculty Opinions
• Multimedia and other online platforms: Monitor community forums such as YouTube, Reddit, and Q&A (stack overflow)
• Online reference managers: Mendeley users who save research to their library are counted (note this data is not included in the Altmetric score)

The data gathered from all that monitoring and tracking is put together into an Attention Score, which is an “automatically calculated weighted count of all of the attention a research output has received. It is based on three main factors: volume, sources, and authors.”³ For more information on the calculation, visit here.

The Altmetric donut

The Almetric donut, which can be found on an article’s webpage, is a visual representation of an article’s Altmetric score. The colors represent attention sources, and the number in the middle is the score:

Term Glossary:

• Blogs: Number of times a publication has been mentioned in blogs
• Captures: When someone bookmarks the article
• Citations: Citations from non-traditional sources like citation indexes, patent citations, clinical citations, and public policy documents
• Facebook: Number of times a publication has been mentioned on Facebook
• Mentions: Blog posts, comments, reviews, and Wikipedia links
• News outlets: Number of mentions in magazines and news including mainstream media and press releases
• Number of discussions: Recommendations or copies made of the resource
• Readership: Can include number of views, saves, downloads, comments, or scholarly (or popular) mentions (sometimes called buzz)
• Reference managers: Number of “saves” in online reference managers
• Twitter: Number of tweets that mention or share (including retweets) the article
• Social networking platforms: Number of links or references to the resource
• Usage: Can include clicks, downloads, views, library holdings, or plays of a video
• Wikipedia: Number of mentions of articles or other academic outputs in the English-language version

References:

1. Course & Subject Guides, Introduction to altmetrics. University of Pittsburgh Library System, Accessed October 6, 2023. https://pitt.libguides.com/altmetrics
2. Our sources. Almetric. Accessed October 4, 2023. https://www.altmetric.com/about-us/our-data/our-sources/
3. The donut and Altmetric Attention Score. Altmetric. Accessed October 6, 2023. https://www.altmetric.com/about-us/our-data/donut-and-altmetric-attention-score/

From What is altmetrics counting and how do altmetrics help authors? by Michelle M. Volesko Brewer, https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/authors-altmetrics-counting

Image credit

Metrics banner image: Free Stock photos by Vecteezy

Altmetric donut: https://www.altmetric.com/about-us/our-data/donut-and-altmetric-attention-score/#