Altmetrics: A Measure of Social Attention toward Scientific Research

Abstract

The quality and impact of scientific research is traditionally measured by citation-based metrics. However, the internet and social media revolution has led to radical changes in the way scientific information is shared and how it impacts the world. Alternative metrics (altmetrics) is a rapidly evolving measure to quantify social media attention received by a scientific work. It is a complement to the conventional metrics, and has tremendous potential in enabling faster alternative ways of evaluating research impact. We discuss the Altmetric Score and the growing role of altmetrics for measuring research impact.