Altmetrics: alternative ways of measuring scholarly impact based on the social web

In recent years there has been a growing demand for objective article-level assessment of research impact. It has evolved from the trends that social media found its use in research and that the movement toward open access accelerated online dissemination of scholarly information. Researchers shifted their venues of professional communications and research workflow to the Web. Created to meet the needs of the Web Age, “altmetrics” will allow article-level, real-time measures of research impact but not citations, using social media. Being still at an early stage, “altmetrics” have the potential to develop as new complements to traditional metrics through tools development and Twitter-based citation projections. To become popular, these new metrics would need to work together with open access for mutual harmony and benefit. This paper overviews the emergence, present situation, relationship with both social media and open access, and opportunities of “altmetrics”.