Getting Started with Altmetrics at Your Journal: An Editor's Guide

Learn how to start tracking altmetrics at your journal

As the academic community increasingly embraces altmetrics, it’s important for journal editors and scholars to know what they are and how to use them. To accompany our free eBook The Evolution of Impact Indicators: From bibliometrics to altmetrics, Scholastica and Altmetric have created two slideshow guides that break down what altmetrics are, benefits of altmetrics tracking, and use cases for journals and researchers. Below is the first slideshow about the role of altmetrics for journal editors.

Getting Started with Altmetrics at Your Journal: An Editor's Guide from Scholastica

This slideshow overviews:

Examples of altmetrics
Common misconceptions explained
Steps to track altmetrics data
Free resources to start learning more about altmetrics

Today research outputs are moving online and being conveyed in new digital formats. As a result, many members of the academic community feel that traditional bibliometric impact indicators are no longer enough to tell the full story of how research is being found, shared, cited, and discussed. Altmetrics, a type of alternative impact indicator that measures non-traditional mentions of research online such as in the news and on social media, are coming to the forefront as a more holistic approach to measuring research impact. Combined with bibliometric impact indicators, altmetrics help to show broader impacts of research beyond academia, such as how research is being used to shape public discourse and policies.

For journals, altmetrics are a powerful way to gauge both where and how their research is being used as well as how well promotional campaigns are performing. We hope this slideshow will prove useful to journal editors as you work to determine the best ways to incorporate altmetrics into your workflow.