Promotion is increasingly dependent upon measuring research quality and research impact. We have seen the standard approaches such as citations, journal ranking and the h-index. But what about other ways of measuring impact, such as your work being discussed in blogs, on twitter, in community newspapers and on other forms of social media?
Yee, I have been into altmetrics See Why you should ignore altmetrics and other bibliometric nightmares
Uhuh, something wrong with the link system. The link is http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6369
In my opinion, a high rate of retweets indicates that your research is pretty trivial, or that the title has some allusion to sex in it.
Certainly the people who want to sell you altmetrics have done next to nothing to show what they measure. It's a bit like homeopathy: proper investigation might reduce sales.
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6369
Thank you David, for the reference and for the thoughtful answer. Indeed there is much to consider here. Have you seen the website called The Conversation? It seems to be an intermediate way to engage with a broader audience without needing to have a sexy title for a paper. Does anyone else have thoughts on this matter? Should we be wary of alt metrics? Are they just a passing fad? Do they trivialise our research?
Here's the link for The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/au
http://theconversation.com/au
Yes, I've had a piece on the Conversation, but I pulled the last one because of excessive editorial interference with what I wanted to say.
@ Jason : "Should we be wary of alt metrics? Are they just a passing fad? Do they trivialise our research?" No, not necessarily.
Don't forget that there is nothing special about the pseudo-standard metrics, except for having successfully been pushed for over 40 years. Read the whole (his)story @ reuters, in those early days I was happy to have a private subscription on the journal of Garfield, no citation index yet.
What are its pros, what are the cons? Alt metrics will continue to be produced by people who identify some flaws or shortcomings of the pseudo-standard metric, either empirically or mathematically. I like especially the recent axiomatic work of Woeginger because he shows how to leverage the discussion from a bare opinion level up to a scientific level.
However, if you believe in de facto standards, don't bother yourself with alt metrics. Otherwise, have a look at a recent book about research quality etc.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843345897
Dear Paul, thank you so much for your great response. I'll look into Woeginer as you recommend and the book. Jason
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