Skip to Main Content

Altmetrics

also known as Alternative Metrics

Finding Altmetrics

How can you find alternative metrics for a publication? There are a variety of tools you can use to find this information. Additionally, many journals are now incorporating altmetrics into their websites, including journals published by Springer, Wiley, Nature Publishing Group, and select Elsevier publications.

  • Altmetric Bookmarklet: Free bookmarklet that displays cites, saves, links, and social media mentions for individual articles.

  • Impact Story: Join free with Twitter. Impact Story is an open-source website that allows researchers to create an online profile to help track the impact of their work.

  • PlumX: You can access PlumX metrics through the Scopus database. Ask a librarian for more information.

  • Metrics Toolkit: For more discussion on all of the different kinds of metrics and use cases for each, visit the Metrics Toolkit. This toolkit also allows you to see appropriate metrics for different kinds of outputs for different scholarly fields.

Altmetrics by Item Type

  • Citations: Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed Central, and Google Scholar citations; citations in policy documents
  • Bookmarks: scholarly bookmarks on Mendeley & CiteULike; bookmarks by the public on Delicious & Pinboard; Twitter favorites
  • Discussion: peer reviews on F1000, Publons, and other post-publication peer review websites; Twitter mentions and Facebook wall posts; newspaper articles, videos, and podcasts; mentions on scholarly blog networks like ResearchBlogging
  • Shares: Twitter mentions, Facebook shares
  • Views: Pageview & download statistics from the journal website or repository where you've archived your paper. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Citations: Web of Science and Scopus citations; Google Book citations
  • WorldCat holdings: the number of libraries worldwide that have purchased your book
  • Views: Pageview & download statistics from your publisher's website or the repository where you've archived your book/chapter. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Ratings: Amazon.com and Goodreads ratings
  • Discussion: see "Articles" tab
  • Bookmarks: see "Articles" tab
  • Citations: Data Citation Index and Google Scholar citations
  • Views: views and downloads from Figshare, Zenodo, Dryad, ICPSR, or other subject or institutional repositories. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Reuse: GitHub forks
  • Discussion: Figshare comments; also see "Articles" tab
  • Bookmarks: see "Articles" tab
  • Citations: Google Scholar citations
  • Downloads: download statistics from GitHub, Bitbucket, Sourceforge, or other institutional or subject repositories. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Adaptations: GitHub forks, Bitbucket clones
  • Collaborators: GitHub collaborators
  • Discussion: GitHub gists, mentions on Twitter, Figshare comments
  • Bookmarks, Shares: see "Articles" tab
  • Views: views and downloads on Figshare, Zenodo, or other institutional or subject repositories. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Discussion: Figshare comments; see also "Articles" tab
  • Bookmarks, Shares: see "Articles" tab
  • Views: views and downloads on Slideshare, Speakerdeck, and Figshare. Consider archiving your work in Prism, Northwestern Medicine's repository. 
  • Discussion: Slideshare and Figshare comments; see also "Articles" tab
  • Shares: Slideshare embeds on other websites; mentions on Twitter, Facebook shares, LinkedIn shares
  • Likes: Slideshare and Speakerdeck likes
  • Bookmarks: see "Articles" tab
  • Views: YouTube, Vimeo, and Figshare views
  • Likes/Dislikes: YouTube likes and dislikes; Vimeo likes
  • Discussion: YouTube, Vimeo, and Figshare comments; see also "Articles" tab
  • Shares, Bookmarks: see "Articles" tab