I strongly support moving towards more integrative methods for measuring the impact of scientific research. Historically, the measure of success has been simply counting the number of times a research article was cited by other research articles. While interesting, there has been a very interesting and promising movement towards "altmetrics," which tries to take a more inclusive approach to how research is consumed by both academic and non-academic communities.
One of the most promising aggregators for altmetrics has been Impactstory, a non-profit initiated in 2011. Until today, I maintained my Impactstory profile on this website with my list of publications. But in a series of blog posts in July and August, Impactstory announced that they would begin charging for their services.
By monetizing their services, Impactstory forced me to assess whether I thought I would experience sufficient return for my investment. At present, there is no evidence that people value my work more (i.e. will hire me) because I use Impactstory. However, I do want to support the growth of altmetrics and its long-term success.
So, my publications page is now going to use the free altmetrics badges from "the competition" over at Altmetric.com. Even for those of us scientists who are not incredibly savvy to programming (this site is built on Weebly), adding the badges is incredibly simple following the instructions available on their website.
Ultimately, Altmetric.com, which won Elsevier's apps for science contest in 2011, appears to be pursuing a different business model. Rather than placing the cost of development on scientists, they are placing it on scientific publishers. While Altmetric.com is for profit and Impactstory is non-profit, both are ultimately businesses; I hope Impactstory's business model works...
One of the most promising aggregators for altmetrics has been Impactstory, a non-profit initiated in 2011. Until today, I maintained my Impactstory profile on this website with my list of publications. But in a series of blog posts in July and August, Impactstory announced that they would begin charging for their services.
By monetizing their services, Impactstory forced me to assess whether I thought I would experience sufficient return for my investment. At present, there is no evidence that people value my work more (i.e. will hire me) because I use Impactstory. However, I do want to support the growth of altmetrics and its long-term success.
So, my publications page is now going to use the free altmetrics badges from "the competition" over at Altmetric.com. Even for those of us scientists who are not incredibly savvy to programming (this site is built on Weebly), adding the badges is incredibly simple following the instructions available on their website.
Ultimately, Altmetric.com, which won Elsevier's apps for science contest in 2011, appears to be pursuing a different business model. Rather than placing the cost of development on scientists, they are placing it on scientific publishers. While Altmetric.com is for profit and Impactstory is non-profit, both are ultimately businesses; I hope Impactstory's business model works...
RSS Feed
