Investigating familiarity and usage of traditional metrics and altmetrics

Abstract

As the online dissemination of scholarly outputs gets faster and easier, altmetrics, social media based indices, have emerged alongside traditional metrics for research evaluation. In a two‐phase survey, we investigate scholars' familiarity and usage of traditional metrics and altmetrics. In this paper, we present the second phase with 448 participants. We found few traditional metrics, like the Journal Impact Factor and number of citations, are familiar to and often used by scholars for research evaluation. Among altmetrics, only views/downloads, readers, and followers are known to more than half the respondents. Unseen benefits and lack of time are hindrances to using metrics for the evaluation of research outputs. Although social media are well‐known, scholars prefer promoting their research by publishing in journals and attending conferences. We found social media usage, perceived ease of use and usefulness of altmetrics affect the usage of altmetrics. Findings suggest altmetrics have attracted attention in academia and could be considered complementary to traditional metrics. We acknowledge that due to the limited sample size, statistics and demographics in this study, findings cannot be said to be representative of the entire academic population worldwide. Future studies are needed that cover a wider range of academic disciplines around the world.