Altmetrics is a newer field that uses online information from social, scholarly, and mainstream media to examine the broader impact and attention of research outputs. Altmetrics tools mine data from usage or download statistics, mentions on social media platforms such as X (Twitter), Mendeley saves, discussion in mainstream news media, and reviews on post publication peer review websites.
Altmetrics are a fast-moving area and the tools and methodologies used frequently change.
Best Practices:
Western University Open Repository: The institutional repository for Western University provides detailed download data for uploaded publications.
Scopus: An established citation index, Scopus incorporates altmetric information alongside traditional article level based measures. This includes how often documents were cited by articles indexed in Scopus and how often they were viewed by Mendeley readers. Scopus also incorporates PlumX Metrics, which tracks five areas: usage, captures, mentions, social media, and citations.
Altmetric.com: Not be to confused with altmetrics as a concept, the company Altmetric.com tracks dozens of sources for mentions of scholarly articles. Although Western Libraries does not subscribe to this service, there are some free access points. See the Altmetric solutions for researchers for more information.
The Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry Research Office provides access to Altmetric.com’s institutional program, for Schulich researchers only. Please see Schulich's Altmetric page for more information.
Publishers and Databases: Individual publishers and database providers are increasingly incorporating altmetrics on their platforms. Look at their pages for information about downloads, citations, or other mentions of individual works.
