Haustein, S. (2016). Exploring the meaning of altmetrics. Presentation at FORCE2016 panel "Altmetrics and my career: real barriers or limitations of our minds?"

https://www.force11.org/meetings/force2016/program/agenda/concurrent-session-altmetrics-and-my-career-real-barriers-or

The acts on which various altmetrics are based are quite heterogeneous: likes on Facebook, mentions on Twitter, saves on Mendeley, and expert recommendations on F1000 are acts that differ in terms of user community, engagement, motivation and audience. While the act of citing has been an essential part of the scholarly communication process since the beginning of modern science, it is unclear whether the acts leading to online events used for altmetrics are relevant in scholarly communication. While empirical studies have shown that most altmetrics correlate weakly with citations, conceptual discussions about their meaning are rare. For most of these new metrics it thus remains quite unclear what exactly they measure. This presentation aims to discuss the heterogeneity of altmetrics, potential biases and their effects on their use in the scientific evaluation and reward system.