INTRODUCTION:

Altmetrics measures and monitors the reach and impact of scholarship and research through online interactions. Altmetrics is data that can explain both the nature and volume of attention that research receives. It measures how many people have engaged with and shared research and allows the researchers or publishers to see in what manner it was shared. Numerous altmetrics harvesting tools have recently been developed, including the Altmetric Explorer. Altmetric Explorer is a Web-based platform that enables users to browse and report on all attention data for every piece of scholarly content for which the platform has found attention.

The system tracks the online attention research receives by aggregating data from numerous avenues of online sharing sources, such as public policy documents, Mendeley, PubMed, mainstream media and social media outputs like Facebook and Twitter and many more. Altmetrics are qualitative data that are reciprocal to traditional, citation-based metrics. Altmetrics are often referred to the ensuing diverse such as

A record of attention:

This class of metrics indicates that, how many people have been exposed to and hooked with scholarly output. Examples of this include referrals in the News, Blogs, Twitter, Article Pageviews, Downloads and Github Repository Watchers.

Calculation of Altmetric Attention Score:

The Altmetric Attention Score for a research output provides an indicator of the amount of attention that it has received. The score is a weighted count. The score is derived from an automated algorithm, and represents a weighted count of the amount of attention picked up for a research output. The Altmetric Attention Score always has to be a whole number. This means that contribute less than 1 to the score sometimes get rounded up to one. Facebook post for a paper, the score would increase by 1, but if picked up 3 more Facebook posts for that same article, the score would still only increase by 1.

A measure of dissemination:

These metrics can help an individual to understand where and why a piece of research is being discussed and shared, both amidst other scholars and in public sphere.

An indicator of influence and impact:

Some of the data gathered via altmetrics can signal that research is changing a field of study or having any other number of tangible and concrete effects upon the large society.

Work of altmetrics in measuring research impact:

· How many times was it downloaded?

· Who is reading the research work?

· Was it covered by any news agencies?

· Are other researchers commenting on it?

· How many times was it shared on Facebook, Twitter, etc

· Which countries are looking at the research?

Benefits of altmetrics:

· Capture elements of societal impact

· Complement traditional metrics

· Open access advantage

· They are quicker to accumulate than citation-based metrics

· They can capture more diverse impacts than citation-based metrics

· They apply to more than journal articles and books

Usage/Considerations of altmetrics:

· Altmetrics are becoming widely used in academia, by individuals, institutions, libraries and publishers to benchmark their journal’s performance in specific subject areas alike.

· Context is king

· Qualitative data is usually more illuminating than metrics alone

· Altmetrics are a great supplement to citations

· Altmetrics offer a lot of information. Here are some considerations to keep in mind when using and analyzing altmetrics data

· Altmetrics lack a standard definition

· Altmetrics data are not normalized

· Altmetrics are time dependent

· Altmetrics have known tracking issues (PlumX Metrics)

Limitations

· Like any metric, there’s a potential for gaming of altmetrics

· Altmetrics are relatively new; more research into their use is needed

Altmetrics in measuring the impact of nursing research platforms:

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, have recently emerged as a complementary way of measuring the societal impact of research by assessing the public engagement with research output. To date, only few studies have investigated the online attention about scientific papers published in the nursing field. Altmetrics will likely continue to evolve alongside the rapidly expanding use of social media and online platforms.

As nursing continues to strive to have the research and scholarship inform policy, translated into practice and recognized for its scientific merit, have to remain vigilant about the best ways to disseminate the important work done. Research work done by Latefa Ali Dardas, etal in 2019 will allow nursing scholars to benchmark the progress and adapt to the changing environment for measuring impact and quality in the digital age.

REFERENCES:

1. Latefa Ali Dardas, etal, 2019, Measuring the social impact of nursing research: An insight into altmetrics. Journal of Advanced Nursing. Volume75, Issue7, Pages 1394-1405.

2. Altmetric. 2018. URL: https://www.altmetric.com/about-our-data/how-it-works/ [accessed 2019-10-01]

3. Gregg Murray, Rebecca Hellen, James Ralph, Siona Ni Raghallaigh, 2020. Comparison of Traditional Citation Metrics and Altmetrics Among Dermatology Journals: Content and Correlational Analysis Study. JMIR Dermatology. Vol 3, No 1.

Received on 22.06.2020 Modified on 06.08.2020

Asian J. Nursing Education and Research. 2020; 10(4):499-500.

DOI: 10.5958/2349-2996.2020.00107.X