Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Content Assessment: From Interest to Investigation? Considering Alternative Metrics in the Evaluation of Research

Information - 92%
Insight - 93%
Relevance - 88%
Objectivity - 89%
Authority - 90%

90%

Excellent

A short percentage-based assessment of the qualitative benefit of the post highlighting a recent article published in Academic Letters by Roelvis Ortiz Nunez on the topic of altmetrics.

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Background Note: Altmetrics are metrics that aim to capture the broader impact of scholarly work by measuring attention and engagement with it in various forms of online media, such as social media, blogs, and news outlets. These metrics can provide a more complete picture of the impact of a piece of scholarship than traditional metrics such as citations in academic journals. Some examples of altmetrics include the number of times a paper is tweeted about, the number of times it is mentioned in a blog post, or the number of times it is viewed or downloaded from a public repository.

Altmetrics might also be useful for cybersecurity, information governance, and legal discovery professionals in a number of ways that may include but not be limited to:

  1. Cybersecurity professionals can use altmetrics to track the spread of information about security vulnerabilities and malware. By monitoring social media, news outlets, and other sources for mentions of specific threats, they can potentially identify and respond to new security risks.
  2. Information governance professionals can use altmetrics to track the spread of sensitive or confidential information within and outside an organization. By monitoring social media and other sources for mentions of specific topics or keywords, they can identify and respond to potential breaches of confidentiality.
  3. Legal discovery professionals can use altmetrics to identify and collect relevant information that might not be found through traditional discovery methods. By monitoring social media, blogs, and other sources for mentions of specific individuals, companies, or topics, they can discover new leads and evidence to support their case.

In the following article, “Altmetrics: Alternative Metrics for Scientific, Technological, and Innovation Evaluation” Roelvis Ortiz Nunez from the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information in Havana, Cuba, highlights the need for alternative metrics for the evaluation of scientific research. The article may be useful for cybersecurity, information governance, and legal discovery professionals seeking to understand better additional approaches to gathering information in today’s interconnected world.


Educational Paper on Alternative Metrics*

Altmetrics: Alternative Metrics for Scientific, Technological, and Innovation Evaluation (Academia Letters Article)

By Roelvis Ortiz Nunez

Abstract

Altmetrics or alternative metrics arise in response to the need to complement traditional metrics in the evaluation of scientific research. A new way of measuring the impact of scientific research, based on new indicators that try to quantify the presence and dissemination of academic activity on the social web. Its goal is to measure web-driven academic interactions, such as how often research is tweeted, blogged, or bookmarked. Therefore, altmetrics is an instrument capable of providing information invisible to traditional metrics, in addition to collaborating in the science dissemination process. The objective of this paper is to offer a brief analysis of the need for these new metrics in the evaluation of science, based on the main applications of their indicators, advantages, disadvantages, and data providers.

Extract

The technological changes of the 1990s and mid-2000s, characterized by the development of the social web and Internet-based social networks, made it possible for many academic papers to be more open and accessible to researchers and communities in general.

The emergence of the Internet and social networks (Web 2.0) is exerting a powerful influence on the ways in which researchers and academics discover, access, process and communicate information. Now the works are disseminated through social networks, blogs, institutional repositories, open-access journals, platforms, among others; and in addition, data is shared, collaborates and comments on ongoing or completed investigations online.

In this new interconnected world, it is already insufficient to base the impact of an academic publication solely on citations in scientific journals, since they do not provide information on all the interactions that occur in the new social media (Williams, 2017). In line with the above, the San Francisco Declaration of Research Evaluation (DORA, 2012) is of special importance, since it highlights the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics, such as journal impact index, in financing, appointments and promotion considerations; as well as the need to evaluate the research on its own merits and not based on the journal in which it is published.

In this context, altmetrics emerge as a response to the need to complement traditional metrics in the evaluation of scientific research. Some authors consider that altmetrics date back to the 1990s with the Webmetrics (or Cybermetrics) metric field based on the quantitative study of web characteristics (Bornmann, 2014; Torres-Salinas et al, 2013). There are two interconnected factors that contributed to its birth: social networks and paradigmatic shifts in scientific communication.

One of its initial milestones, the manifesto signed by Priem et al. (2010), leaves a clear critical position for the hegemony of the impact factor and for the traditional peer review process. Proponents of altmetrics in general are aligned with the movement for open access to scientific information and the search for viable alternatives to the current model in scientific publishing.

Altmetrics are a new way of measuring the impact of scientific research, based on new indicators that try to quantify the presence and dissemination of academic activity on the social web. They are measures of how people interact with a given academic job. Its goal is to measure web-driven academic interactions, such as how often research is tweeted, blogged, or bookmarked. Therefore, altmetrics is an instrument capable of providing information invisible to traditional metrics, in addition to collaborating in the science dissemination process.


Read the Complete Paper: Altmetrics – Alternative Metrics for Scientific, Technological, and Innovation Evaluation (PDF) – Mouseover to  Scroll

Altmetrics - Alternative Metrics

Read the original paper.

Reference: Ortiz Núñez, R. (2021). Altmetrics: alternative metrics for scientific, technological and innovation evaluation. Academia Letters, Article 1658. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1658.

*Open Access – Distributed Under CC BY 4.0


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