Advancing Altmetrics: Best Practices and Emerging Ideas

11:00am – 11:10am Welcome and Introduction

11:10 – 11:45am The Ghost of Altmetrics Yet to Come

Altmetrics is seven years old, and although the interest and momentum in our field has not slackened, the nature has changed. While many of the early suggestions made in the manifesto in 2010 are still to be realized, new uses have emerged. Internationally, research institutions and funders are pursuing evidence-based decision-making, and both traditional metrics and altmetrics are under serious scrutiny. Altmetrics has proven itself to be a flexible and adaptive field, but as it approaches its first decade, where will it position itself, and how will it adapt to the multiple demands of being a personal tool, an industry-wide analytical approach and an academic field?

11:45am – 12:15pm Lessons from the humanities and social sciences: exploring values-based altmetrics

Humanists and social scientists are increasingly using altmetrics to inform their scholarly research, outreach, and evaluation practices. This talk will make an argument for using disciplinary values to select and develop better metrics, including altmetrics, by which these scholars can manage their work. In particular, we'll discuss the work of the HuMetricsHSS Initiative--a Mellon-funded research team that seeks to better align evaluation practices in the humanities and social sciences with the values that drive academia.

12:15pm – 12:45pm Designing metrics that serve academia

We believe that academia works best when the right people get the resources they need to do what they do best. However, the metrics used to determine resource allocation aren't always aligned with the interests of the researcher, the mission of the institution & funding organization, or broader societal goals. A radical re-thinking of how metrics are designed, used, and understood is required to bring these into alignment, to facilitate assessment of research, respect the researcher's time, dispel troublesome myths, and cultivate a mindset of abundance. This wildly optimistic talk will propose such a re-thinking.

12:45pm – 1:45pm Break for Lunch

1:45 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. Building New Faculty Services: Altmetric Adoption

UT Arlington Libraries piloted a new metric consultation and report service in 2016. In the year since the service launched, we have consulted with 40 faculty, reaching a diverse body in terms of discipline and academic rank. The presentation will discuss the circumstances that led to the pilot, challenges encountered, lessons learned, and what worked.

2:15 - 2:45 p.m. Telling Your Science Story: Using Alternative Metrics to Showcase Impact

Storytelling is an integral part of how we communicate—we’re wired to process and recall information in terms of story. But how does this concept fit into science? At Galter Health Sciences Library, librarians harness alternative metrics to help researchers enhance their NIH biosketches and promotion and tenure dossiers. In this talk, Patty Smith will discuss real-life examples of how librarians and researchers can use alternative metrics in a narrative format to showcase research impact and provide context to tell an engaging story. 

2:45pm – 3:15pm Make Data Count

Usage and citation metrics are essential to gauging reach and measuring the impact of data. Currently, groups are focused on determining best practices in data citation and linking data with publications. However, in order for data to be considered a valued research output, we must also build a common standard to measure how often data is being used. The Make Data Count (MDC) project is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop and deploy the social and technical infrastructure necessary to elevate data to a first-class research output alongside more traditional products, such as publications. The MDC team is doing so by finding alternative ways of gauging reach, measuring impact for data, and building data level metrics (DLMs). The MDC project plans to not just focus on citations and usage but also building out a technical hub so that information does not get left behind as it can with article. As the field gets more mature we expect metrics and usage stats to be fed into the DLM hub. Partnering with COUNTER, the project team has drafted the first iteration of a COUNTER Code of Practice for Research Data surrounding data usage statistics for community input. In conjunction, the project has been focusing on building out a DLM hub using Lagotto (DataCite), and will be enlisting the cooperation of the research, library, funder, and publishing stakeholder communities to implement DLMs across DataCite repositories and drive adoption of DLMs.

3:15pm – 3:30pm Break

3:30pm – 4:00pm Metrics and Altmetrics in the Administration of Higher Ed

Shifting our perspective to a bird's eye view, this session will discuss current practices and future possibilities regarding the use of metrics and altmetrics in university-level strategy and decision-making. How could and should such metrics be used? How can libraries most effectively and appropriately consider their roles in this area? Special consideration will be given to the need and challenge of developing metrics for interdisciplinary research.

4:00pm – 4:30pm Future Directions: Measuring the Impact of Scholarly Research through Usage

4:30pm – 5:00 pm Wrap-Up Discussion