Article Level Metrics on Nature.com

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Oct 25, 2012, 09:30 ET

LONDON, October 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Article level metrics are now available on twenty journals on nature.com, Nature Publishing Group's (NPG) publishing platform. Nature.com users can now view an article's citation data, page views, news mentions, blog posts and social shares including Facebook and Twitter. This enhanced functionality went live today on Nature, the Nature research journals and Nature Communications, and is also available on Scientific Reports. Article level metrics are available on research articles published since 2011 and are openly accessible to all.

"These metrics transparently show the impact and reach of articles published in our journals, enable evaluation, and help readers see what others find interesting and notable," said Kira Anthony, Editorial Development Manager, NPG. "The interest in both traditional metrics and 'altmetrics' from the research community is clear, and NPG is pleased to offer this improved functionality and service to our readers and authors. Institutions, funders and those mining data are also beginning to look at this information, for example for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) evaluation in the UK. Some REF panels will look at article citations and consider other measures of tracking research impact."

Citation data is pulled from Web of Science, CrossRef and Scopus and is updated daily. The counts for each article link out to a citation list. Page views on nature.com are updated daily. Readers can see total views (HTML+PDF) of the article, and track the cumulative count on a given day using an interactive graph. Page view data only reflect usage on the nature.com journal platform and are only for articles published on or after 1 January 2012.

News, blog posts, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit bookmarks data, are provided by Altmetric and updated hourly using Altmetric's application programming interface (API). Altmetric is supported by Digital Science, a Macmillan company focused on technology to aid scientific research. Blog and Google+ lists link out to the original posts, and news links out to the original article. To be included, third party news pieces must contain a link to the relevant article on nature.com. A world map shows the number of tweets per country.

"We're pleased to see Altmetric data integrated onto nature.com," said Euan Adie, Founder of Altmetric. "NPG joins a growing number of publishers using the Altmetric API to enrich their article level metrics. Pulling together all of the online discussions about a paper enables scientists to see what their peers find interesting, and authors can quantify the attention their articles are receiving."

More information:

Examples of article level metrics on Scientific Reports: http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/metrics

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120417/srep00369/metrics

Example of article level metrics on Nature:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/nature11247/metrics

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v482/n7383/nature10776/metrics

High and low resolution screenshots available on request

About Altmetric

Altmetric is a London based start-up that enables customers to track and measure the online activity around academic research. It has a strong focus on engineering and data science know-how and makes collecting and analysing article level metrics easy for both researchers and publishers. More information at http://altmetric.com/

Altmetric is supported by Digital Science, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., launched in December 2010 to provide technology solutions for researchers.

From intelligent knowledge discovery tools to software applications for the laboratory and decision-support systems for managers, Digital Science combines world-class technology with a resolute focus on scientists and those who support the research process. For more information, visit http://www.digital-science.com

About NPG

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.

Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 6 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including news and comment from Nature, Naturejobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education's Scitable.com.

Scientific American is at the heart of NPG's consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 14 local language editions around the world it reaches over 5 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.

Throughout all its businesses NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific and medical communities and the wider scientifically interested general public. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Cairo, Dubai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Melbourne, Osaka, Seoul, Barcelona, Madrid, Basingstoke, Heidelberg, Munich and Paris. For more information, please go to http://www.nature.com.