Tracking Your Book

What you should know about Altmetrics

Who am I? Why am I here?

• Dr. Lucy Montgomery

• Research Director for Knowledge Unlatched.

• A not-for-profit company creating sustainable routes to Open Access for Scholarly Books.

• Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, QUT.

• Author of a book.

This Presentation

1. What is metadata?2. What are Altmetrics?3. What do they mean for books?4. Can they help support a shift to Open

Access?5. What are we doing about it?

What is Metadata*

(a) “Data about Data”(b) Something the NSA wants a lot of(c) Magic pixie dust(d) Digital breadcrumbs(e) All of the above

*As defined by Micah Altman. See his great presentation on Metadata and Metrics to support OA at:

http://www.slideshare.net/drmaltman/altman-knowledgeunlatchedmetadata?from_search=2

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/interactive/2013/jun/12/what-is-metadata-nsa-surveillance#meta=0000000

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/interactive/2013/jun/12/what-is-metadata-nsa-surveillance#meta=0000000

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/4935751455/

What are Altmetrics

• An alternative to ‘traditional’ measures of research impact: JIF, citation counts.

• Arising from the social web.• “expands our view of what impact looks like,

but also of what’s making the impact” • New approach to filtering content for quality

and relevance. Crowd sourced peer review?

Impact metrics and Books

• How do you measure the ‘impact’ of books?• Citation Counts: Problematic.• Reviews? • Social media buzz?• Downloads?• Reputation of the publisher?• Sales?

What kind of impact metrics?

• Analogue books: Little information about who reads what, where.

• The shift to digital is making books more visible in digital landscapes.

• But what kind of impact metrics to the authors of books want and need?

Can Altmetrics help with open?

• Can Altmetrics help tell richer stories about the effects of OA on the dissemination of knowledge and ideas contained in books?

• Can they help research funders to trace the impact of work they fund?

• Can they help researchers to understand their audiences better and engage in new ways?

What KU is doing about it

• High quality metadata for OA books.• Intended to make books visible, discoverable

and easy to use.• Book and chapter level DOIs.• Gathering information about use.• Making data available to altmetric projects

and communities.

What authors should know

• Altmetrics for books are still in their infancy.• However, engaging with Altmetric tools is

important and useful for authors of books.• Understanding what Altmetrics are, how they

work and thinking about what you might want from a metrics system will help you to shape the future.

£65 per copy (hardback)

Available as an eBook

Chapter Level DOIs!