Altmetrics – measure and manage the ‘buzz’ around your articles

Have you been seeing ‘donuts’ everywhere?  

Not this kind of donut – I unfortunately can’t legitimately use an Altmetric donut graphic here – but you may well have seen the multi-coloured circles (‘donuts’) created by Altmetric appearing on journal websites, on citation databases such as Web of Science, and on researchers’ websites. If you don’t already know what altmetrics and the donuts are here is a brief guide.

Altmetrics are basically alternative metrics to the impact factor, and measure the impact of researchers’ publications beyond citations. This kind of impact is becoming increasingly important for researchers to demonstrate. In fact there is currently a government review (Independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment) taking place that is evaluating to what extent, if any, to include metrics in the next REF.

Altmetric.com

The company Altmetric for example has servers that watch social media sites, newspapers, and many other sources for mentions of scholarly articles and bring them together to compile article level metrics. They calculate an Altmetric ‘score’ and put this number in the centre of the donut. The colours reflect the mix of sources mentioning that score e.g. blue for Twitter, yellow for blogs, red for mainstream media sources etc. Altmetric does this on behalf of publishers, institutions, and researchers. Hence the donuts’ appearance on journal websites, databases and researchers’ websites.

Ways you can use the donut

For researchers, Altmetric provides a free bookmarklet, and free embeddable badges.

Once installed, the bookmarklet allows you to navigate to the desired journal article and hit “Altmetric it” in your browser’s bookmarks bar, and you’ll see the Altmetric donut, score, and metrics.

You can enhance your CV and publication lists on your personal website by adding Altmetric badges, including the donut. You just need the article’s identifier (e.g., a DOI, arXiv ID, etc.) and some simple lines of code. Clicking on the badge will take visitors to your website to a landing page hosted by Altmetric where they can see a score breakdown, the context and Twitter demographics for that article.

You can also use altmetrics to track articles and to receive email alerts when they receive new attention so you can keep up to date with who is mentioning your article and where.

Symplectic

Altmetric donuts are now displayed beside the citation counts on Symplectic (via Altmetric for Institutions).

Metrics, Kudos and the RSC

Altmetric donuts already appear on RSC journal websites.

You may also be interested in Kudos. According to their website:

Kudos is a free service for researchers through which you can explain, enrich, and share links to your publications to help increase readership and citations.

Kudos operates across publishers. Kudos can be used for any publication for which a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) has been registered with CrossRef and so articles, books, and book chapters can be uploaded.

The RSC is currently working with Kudos; find out more on this Chemistry Library blog post: https://cambridgechemlib.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/kudos-increase-the-impact-of-your-publications/.

You can of course sign up to Kudos now for free, independently, to try it out; it might be useful to you as a one-stop shop for managing the buzz around your articles.

RSC Video Competition – Take 1…Minute for Chemistry in Health

Can you explain the importance of chemistry to human health in just 1 minute?

If you are up to the challenge, you could win £500 in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ‘Take 1 … minute for chemistry in health’ video competition.

For more details on how to enter, visit http://rsc.li/take-1-videos.

Kudos – increase the impact of your publications

What is Kudos?

According to their website:

Kudos is a free service for researchers through which you can explain, enrich, and share links to your publications to help increase readership and citations.

How does it work?

Again, according to their website:

Researchers register to use Kudos and are then led through various steps that prompt them to explain their publications; add context and enrich them with links to resources such as images and data; and share information about their publications via social networks and email. The Kudos platform distributes the additional author-added content and links to aid discoverability of publications. Kudos also enables researchers to track the effect of their actions against a wide range of metrics.

Kudos operates across publisher platforms and subject disciplines and enables you to monitor and manage the attention all your publications (articles, books, and book chapters) receive in one place. You can add publications retrospectively and indeed it may help to revive interest in your older publications.

Do I have to pay?

No, it is free for researchers to use; only publishers, funders and institutions pay a fee for various tools and information.

How do I find out more?

Visit the Kudos website: https://www.growkudos.com/.

The RSC is partnering with Kudos. See the press release http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2013/Kudos-RSC-launch.asp, and watch the video of researchers’ experience of using Kudos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K06nqKEhls0&sns=tw.

CUP Life Sciences coursebooks now available

Some chemistry ebooks are included, as well as ebooks in related subjects in the life sciences. Also included are some useful life science professional development texts covering how to write and illustrate a scientific paper, successful science communication, successful scientific writing, choosing science as a career, for example.

ebooks@cambridge

All the Life Sciences coursebook titles on Cambridge Books Online (CBO) and its companion platform University Publishing Online (UPO) are now accessible for University of Cambridge staff and students. This complements the access already available to all CUP monographs on CBO and UPO.

The titles are searchable in LibrarySearch and are available on and off campus (with a Raven username and password).

As new titles are published to the Life Sciences coursebooks collection they will also be added. Titles relevant for subjects including Anthropology, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, and Psychology are also included in this collection.

Access to this collection will remain until the end of June 2015 in the first instance.

Please send any comments and queries to the ebooks team on ebooks@lib.cam.ac.uk.

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Using electronic library collections over the holidays

Useful information on accessing electronic resources while you’re away from Cambridge.

Electronic Collection Management

Will you be away from Cambridge over the vacation? Why not make the most of our eresources collections?

A search on LibrarySearch will include results for ebooks and ejournals. You can refine your search results to only show e-content. Click on the links provided, either at the top of the record where it says ‘Online:’ or at the bottom of the record where it says ‘This title is available online at the following:’

The ebook and ejournal links from LibrarySearch will prompt you to enter your Raven details, if you have not entered them already, and you will be able to access the full text content within the dates specified on the catalogue record (for ejournals).

You can also search for ejournals from this A-Z, databases from this A-Z and articles on LibrarySearch+.Links from these search options will all prompt a Raven login the first time you use…

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Altmetric Top 100 2014 | Altmetric.com

A really interesting blog post by Altmetric on their annual list of which published research has been attracting the most attention online in 2014.

Electronic Collection Management

Altmetric Top 100 2014 | Altmetric.com.

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Knovel returns for 6 months

The previous trial was quite popular with chemists so give it a go!

ebooks@cambridge

Early in 2014 the University Library held a successful trial of Knovel, an online service for discovering reference information, interactive content and properties data for engineers and scientists. Thank you to all who participated and provided feedback on how useful this resource is for teaching, research and coursework.

As of today until the end of May 2015, University of Cambridge registered users have access to Knovel once again. This has been made possible through the financial support of the Engineering Department, the Engineering Department Library, and the ebooks@cambridge service.

You can access the collection, both on and off campus (with a Raven login) from HERE

You will be able to search for the ebooks, papers and reports included in the Knovel collection in LibrarySearch, the records should appear in the week beginning the 8th December. For a list of subject areas included in Knovel please scroll down.

Please contact Niamh…

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Reaxys – new ‘@cam find full text’ buttons

Now you can link directly to the full text of journal articles (if subscribed to by the University) from within Reaxys while on the University network, by using the new ‘@cam find full text’ buttons that have been added to the database.

(Click on the screenshots below to enlarge them).

How does it work?

These buttons act as link resolvers, directing you (by way of the DOI for an article) directly to the article. This functionality is also available when using Google Scholar and other e-resources from within the University network.

This means that when you have performed a search on Reaxys and wish to download an article that you have found a reference to, as shown in the following screenshot, you should see the ‘@cam find full text button’ by each citation:

Click on the button and you will be taken to a record for the article on the ejournals@cambridge website:

Here, you will see the exact details of full-text coverage available for the journal that the article is published in. If the University subscribes to content that covers the date your article was published you will see the orange ‘Article’ button. Click on this and you will be taken directly to the article and you should be able to download the full text.

What if the University doesn’t subscribe?

When you click on the ‘@cam find full text’ button from within Reaxys you may be directed to a record on ejournals@cambridge that tells you that the full-text of an article is not available (because the University does not subscribe):

You can see that there is a ‘By Title’ link (Step 1) to the library catalogue, LibrarySearch, which will search for the print version of the journal in Cambridge. You will usually have to visit the holding library in person but in many cases we do have arrangements with libraries whereby they will scan articles for us for free if we request it – please ask us. Otherwise, you can ask us to request a copy of the article via the British Library’s Document Supply Service, please see our website for more information. The University Library does offer the same service and cheaper (you will find details on this by clicking on the ‘Inter-library Loans’ link as shown in the above screenshot) but they will not be able to charge it back to your Grant/Ledger code for you, as we can).

How does this work if I’m away from the University network?

Off-campus access to Reaxys is best achieved by going to the Chemistry Library website at http://www-library.ch.cam.ac.uk/ and clicking on the link to Reaxys on the left-hand side menu (under the ‘Resources’ section). At this point you should be prompted to enter your Raven login and password. When you have clicked on the ‘@cam find full text’ button next to a citation and then click on the orange ‘Article’ button (if the University subscribes) you should be able to go directly to the article without having to enter your Raven credentials again.

What if the ‘@cam find full text’ button doesn’t work properly?

This is very new functionality – if you find any anomalies or the button doesn’t appear to be working properly please do report it to the ejournals@cambridge helpdesk at ejournals@lib.cam.ac.uk, including the full details of the article you are trying to access.