Altmetrics – a complement to conventional metrics

Emerging metrics based on article-level does not exclude traditional metrics based on citations to the journal, but complements them. Both can be employed in conjunction to offer a richer picture of an article use from immediate to long terms. Article-level metrics (ALM) is the result of the aggregation of different data sources and the collection of content from multiple social network services. Sources used for the aggregation can be broken down into five categories: usage, captures, mentions, social media and citations. Data sources depend on the tool, but they include classic metrics indicators based on citations, academic social networks (Mendeley, CiteULike, Delicious) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, or Youtube, among others). Altmetrics is not synonymous with alternative metrics. Altmetrics are normally early available and allow to assess the social impact of scholarly outputs, almost at the real time. This paper overviews briefly the meaning of altmetrics and describes some of the existing tools used to apply this new metrics: Public Library of Science--Article-Level Metrics, Altmetric, Impactstory and Plum.