1. Tracking Your Book
What you should know about
Altmetrics

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. 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

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

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

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

11. 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?

15. 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?

16. 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?

17. 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?

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. £65 per copy (hardback)
Available as an eBook
Chapter Level DOIs!