Today, researchers can promote their publications in ways that weren’t even imagined 20 years ago. Social media and networking sites are a legitimate resource used by researchers to disseminate their research and collaborate with others in their field. Besides popular forms of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, there are also a few that specifically focus on the research world and academia.
Authors and researchers can track and promote their research using many different metrics, or measures. Five categories developed by Plum Analytics help provide clear and user friendly areas to consider when tracking and promoting an article or resource.
This category counts the number of clicks or downloads for a resource. It keeps track of how often an article is read or a video us played.
This metric includes bookmarks and favorites. It is an indication of how many people have marked the resource to come back to later.
This shows how often the resource is mentioned online in Blog posts, comments and reviews. It can give a quick look at what people are saying about the item.
Also known as alternative metrics, this category includes likes on Facebook and tweets on Twitter. This can be a good indication of how well promoted the research is and measures the attention that research is getting on social media.
This category tracks the number of times an item is cited by another item. It can show who is engaging with the research.
All metric categories, with the exception of citation counts, can be tracked immediately after publication. Using these metrics means you don’t have to wait years for an item to be cited before seeing the impact of the research. There are many online resources that can help you track or promote your research, and some that will do both.
Here are a few of the databases at Walden Library that provide journal and article metrics.
OASIS