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Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Libraries

Altmetrics

Altmetrics are alternative indicators to traditional bibliometric indicators.

The best-known bibliometric indicators are based on the reputation of scientific journals, so that all articles of the same publication are valued equally, regardless of their actual impact. Altmetrics, on the other hand, contain information on the impact of individual papers. 

The other notable feature of altmetrics is that they collect information on interactions on social networks: how has an article been received on the web? How many times has it been downloaded? Has it been spread on X or Facebook? Has it been exported to Mendeley? Has it been shared on Reddit? Has it been cited on Wikipedia?

If bibliometric indicators are used to measure the academic impact of scientific papers, almetrics also help to measure visibility and social impact.

Additional information

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