Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Moving to article-level (vs. journal-level) metrics of impact

Article in today's (2/29/12) CHE on "altmetrics", "Tracking Scholarly Influence Beyond the Impact Factor."
The big open access science publisher, PLOS, is leading the way...Some excerpts:
"“A very blunt instrument” is how Peter Binfield of the Public Library of Science describes the impact factor...PLoS works on an open-access model; the impact factor doesn’t reign supreme there as it does at so many subscription-based operations. Instead, the publisher emphasizes a variety of article-level metrics: usage statistics and citations, sure, but also how often an article is blogged about or bookmarked and what readers and media outlets are saying about it. The approach is part of a broader trend toward altmetrics, alternative ways of measuring scholarly influence...“We see this as a powerful thing that demonstrates the power of open access,” Mr. Binfield says. “We really would like to see it adopted much more widely, and for every publisher to provide this kind of data on their articles.”"

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