Guide to altmetrics and research impact beyond traditional citations
SKILL.md
Altmetrics Guide
Understand and use alternative metrics (altmetrics) to measure the broader impact and reach of research outputs beyond traditional citation counts.
What Are Altmetrics?
Altmetrics capture the online attention and engagement that research receives across diverse platforms. Unlike citation-based metrics (which can take years to accumulate), altmetrics provide near-real-time signals of how research is being discussed, shared, and used.
Source Category
Examples
What It Measures
Social media
Twitter/X, Facebook, Reddit, Weibo
Public discussion and sharing
News & blogs
Mainstream media, science blogs
Media coverage and science communication
Policy documents
Government reports, clinical guidelines
Policy relevance
Reference managers
Mendeley, Zotero readership
Academic readership and interest
Wikipedia
Article citations
Educational and encyclopedic use
Peer review
Publons, post-publication review
Formal and informal peer evaluation
Patents
Patent citations
Commercial and industrial relevance
Key Altmetric Providers and Scores
Altmetric.com Attention Score
The Altmetric Attention Score is a weighted composite of online mentions:
Source
Weight
Rationale
News outlets
8
Editorial curation, wide audience
Blog posts
5
Expert commentary
Wikipedia
3
Encyclopedic significance
Policy documents
3
Real-world impact
Twitter/X posts
1
Broad sharing but low barrier
Facebook posts
0.25
General public engagement
Reddit posts
0.25
Community discussion
Mendeley readers
0 (separate)
Tracked but not in score
PlumX Metrics (Elsevier)
PlumX organizes metrics into five categories:
Usage: Downloads, views, library holdings
Captures: Bookmarks, readers, watchers
Mentions: Blog posts, news articles, reviews, Wikipedia
Social Media: Tweets, Facebook likes, Reddit activity
import requests
# Look up altmetrics by DOI
doi = "10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"
response = requests.get(f"https://api.altmetric.com/v1/doi/{doi}")
if response.status_code == 200:
data = response.json()
print(f"Title: {data.get('title')}")
print(f"Altmetric Score: {data.get('score')}")
print(f"Twitter mentions: {data.get('cited_by_tweeters_count', 0)}")
print(f"News mentions: {data.get('cited_by_msm_count', 0)}")
print(f"Blog mentions: {data.get('cited_by_feeds_count', 0)}")
print(f"Wikipedia mentions: {data.get('cited_by_wikipedia_count', 0)}")
print(f"Mendeley readers: {data.get('readers', {}).get('mendeley', 0)}")
print(f"Detail URL: {data.get('details_url')}")
else:
print("No altmetric data found for this DOI")
Batch Queries
# Query multiple DOIs using the Altmetric Explorer API (requires subscription)
# Free API supports individual lookups by DOI, PubMed ID, or arXiv ID
# Look up by PubMed ID
pmid = "34234348"
response = requests.get(f"https://api.altmetric.com/v1/pmid/{pmid}")
# Look up by arXiv ID
arxiv_id = "2103.14030"
response = requests.get(f"https://api.altmetric.com/v1/arxiv/{arxiv_id}")
Interpreting Altmetrics Responsibly
What Altmetrics Tell You
Speed of dissemination: How quickly research is being noticed
Audience breadth: Whether attention comes from academics, media, public, or policymakers
Geographic reach: Where in the world the work is being discussed
Interdisciplinary interest: Engagement from unexpected fields
What Altmetrics Do NOT Tell You
Quality: High attention does not equal high quality (controversial or flawed papers can go viral)
Field-normalized comparison: Raw scores are not comparable across disciplines
Gaming resistance: Social media metrics can be artificially inflated
Comprehensive coverage: Not all platforms and languages are tracked equally
Best Practices for Using Altmetrics
Combine with traditional metrics: Use altmetrics alongside citation counts, h-index, and peer review to build a complete picture of impact.
Context matters: A score of 50 might be exceptional in pure mathematics but ordinary in public health. Check the "Compared to outputs of the same age" percentile.
Report responsibly: When including altmetrics in CVs or grant applications, explain what the numbers mean (e.g., "Top 5% of all research outputs tracked by Altmetric.com").
Track over time: Set up alerts for your publications to monitor engagement trends.
Explore the sources: Click through to see who is discussing your work and in what context. A single policy document mention may be more meaningful than 100 tweets.
