Abstract
All research at Dutch universities is assessed on a regular basis following the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP). From 2015 onwards, one of the protocol’s criteria for measuring research success is the societal impact of the research. As traditional metrics do not provide an indication of public reach and influence, the African Studies Centre in Leiden (ASCL) decided to experiment with the new suite of alternative metrics – altmetrics – that measure the number of times a research output is viewed, downloaded or mentioned online. I analyzed the presence of altmetric indicators in 148 publications using Altmetric.com and evaluated the content that Altmetric.com tracked. This paper describes the ASCL Altmetric experiment and reports on its results.
Highlights
All research at Dutch universities is assessed on a regular basis following the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP).1 From 2015 onwards, one of the protocol’s criteria for measuring research success is the societal impact of the research
How can a research institute demonstrate that its research outputs have had societal impact? How can it prove that its outputs have been made publicly available, but that the public is using them? This question had to be tackled by the African Studies Centre in Leiden2 (ASCL) in early 2017 when it was evaluated by an external independent committee according to SEP
As traditional metrics do not provide an indication of public reach and influence, I decided to experiment with the new suite of alternative metrics – altmetrics – that were first proposed in 2010 (Priem et al 2010)
Summary
All research at Dutch universities is assessed on a regular basis following the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP). From 2015 onwards, one of the protocol’s criteria for measuring research success is the societal impact of the research. All research at Dutch universities is assessed on a regular basis following the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP).. How can a research institute demonstrate that its research outputs have had societal impact? As traditional metrics do not provide an indication of public reach and influence, I decided to experiment with the new suite of alternative metrics – altmetrics – that were first proposed in 2010 (Priem et al 2010). Altmetrics measure the number of times a research output is cited, tweeted about, liked, shared, bookmarked, viewed, downloaded, mentioned, favourited, reviewed, or discussed. Altmetrics analyse the impact of any research output (e.g. books, blogs, publications for the ’general public’, etc.) as opposed to the traditional way of assessing the impact of scientific output, which is primarily based on the analysis of journal articles. There are a number of tools that capture altmetrics, such as PlumAnalytics, Impactstory, and Altmetric.com. I chose Altmetric.com for this experiment as it offers a free Altmetric Explorer account to academic librarians. Altmetric scores – visualized in the colourful Altmetric doughnut7 – increasingly appear on publishers’ websites, in institutional repositories, and even in library catalogues
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
