Article-Level Metrics At PLoS > Addition Of Usage Data

Submitted by Mark Patterson on Wed, 2009-09-16 11:10.

 

As part of our ongoing article-level metrics program, we’re delighted to announce that all seven PLoS journals will now provide online usage data for published articles. With this addition, the suite of metrics on PLoS articles now includes measures of: online usage; citations from the scholarly literature; social bookmarks; blog coverage; and the Comments, Notes and ‘Star’ ratings that have been made on the article.

As discussed recently, we at PLoS feel that there is much to be gained from assessing research articles on their own merits rather than on the basis of the journal (and its impact factor) where the work happens to be published. [snip]

[http://www.plos.org/cms/node/478]

PLoS has therefore embarked on a program to aggregate a range of available data about an article and place that data on the article itself. The data are found on the new tab called ‘Metrics’, available on all articles. A reader can now scan the various metrics to determine the extent to which the article has been viewed, cited, covered in the media and so forth. With the addition of usage data to the article-level metrics we have taken another step towards providing the community with valuable data that can be used and analyzed.

In order to make article-level metrics as open and useful as possible, we are providing our entire dataset as a downloadable spreadsheet and we encourage interested researchers to download the data and perform their own analyses.

[http://www.plos.org/downloads/plos-alm.zip]

We will be updating this spreadsheet periodically, but on launch the data it contains are correct up to July 31st, 2009. Future developments in our article-level metrics program will include the provision of more data for each metric ... and new indicators as they arise, as well as the development of more sophisticated display and analysis tools on the site itself.

We believe that article-level metrics represent an important development for scholarly publishing[snip].

It’s also important to emphasize that online usage should not be seen as an absolute indicator of quality for any given article, and such data must be interpreted with caution. To provide additional context and to aid interpretation, we have provided a series of summary tables indicating the average usage of categories of article (grouped by age, journal and topic area).

[http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/journalStatistics.action]

Users will also notice that a number of articles do not have any usage data, because of problems with the log files. We are working hard to add data for these articles, and we also encourage readers to let us know if they find any anomalies or have any questions about the data. More information about our article-level metrics program can be found in our FAQ,

[http://www.plos.org/about/faq.html#metrics]

this explanatory website,

[http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/]

as well as in this page of descriptive text for each journal (e.g for PLoS Biology and PLoS ONE). We look forward to your feedback, and to further developments in article-level metrics.

[http://www.plosbiology.org/static/almInfo.action] / [http://www.plosone.org/static/almInfo.action]

Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing

Media and other enquiries to Liz Allen, Director of Marketing, Tel (001) 415 624 1218

Source

[http://www.plos.org/cms/node/485]

Related/See Also

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/06/article-level-metrics-at-plos-and.html]

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/11/article-level-metrics-and-evolution-of.html]

YouTube Video (Thanks To Garrett Eastman /  Librarian / Rowland Institute At Harvard / For The HeadsUp)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHUqwxIxgZQ]

Article-Level Download Metrics—What Are They Good For?

[http://www.plos.org/cms/node/487]

Berkman Center Lecture / Webcast > Transforming Scholarly Communication | September 18 2009 |

Lee Dirks / Director, Education & Scholarly Communication / Microsoft External Research

Friday/ September 18, 1:15pm / Pound Hall Room 100 (Map) / Free and Open to the Public /

In Person > RSVP Requested / Webcast > Live at 1:15 pm ET.

This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard Business School Knowledge and Library Services, Harvard Law School Library, and the Office for Scholarly Communication.
In the future, frontier research in many fields will increasingly require the collaboration of globally distributed groups of researchers needing access to distributed computing, data resources and support for remote access to expensive, multi-national specialized facilities such as telescopes and accelerators or specialist data archives.

There is also a general belief that an important road to innovation will be provided by multi-disciplinary and collaborative research – from bio-informatics and earth systems science to social science and archeology. There will also be an explosion in the amount of research data collected in the next decade - petabytes will be common in many fields. These future research requirements constitute the 'eResearch' agenda.

Powerful software services will be widely deployed on top of the academic research networks to form the necessary 'Cyberinfrastructure' to provide a collaborative research environment for the global academic community.

The difficulties in combining data and information from distributed sources, the multi-disciplinary nature of research and collaboration, and the need to move to present researchers with tooling that enable them to express what they want to do rather than how to do it highlight the need for an ecosystem of Semantic Computing technologies.

Such technologies will further facilitate information sharing and discovery, will enable reasoning over information, and will allow us to start thinking about knowledge and how it can be handled by computers.This talk will review the elements of this vision and explain the need for semantic-oriented computing by exploring eResearch projects that have successfully applied relevant technologies — and anticipated impact on scholarly communication as we know it today.
It will also suggest that a software + service model with scientific services delivered from the cloud will become an increasingly accepted model for research.

About Lee

Lee Dirks is the Director of Education & Scholarly Communications in Microsoft’s External Research division, where he manages a variety of research programs related to open access to research data, interoperability of archives and repositories, preservation of digital information as well as the application of new technologies to facilitate teaching and learning in higher education.An 20-year veteran across multiple information management fields,

Lee holds an M.L.S. degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as well as a post-masters degree in Preservation Administration from Columbia University. In addition to past positions at Columbia and with OCLC (Preservation Resources), Lee has held a variety of roles at Microsoft since joining the company in 1996 - namely as the corporate archivist, then corporate librarian, and as a senior manager in the corporate market research organization.In addition to participation on several (US) National Science Foundation task forces, Lee also teaches as adjunct faculty at the iSchool at the University of Washington, and serves on the advisory boards for the University of Washington Libraries as well as the iSchool's Master of Science in Information Science program.

During his career, his team's work on the library intranet site at Microsoft was recognized as a "Center of Excellence Award for Technology" in 2003 by the Special Library Association's (SLA) Business & Finance Division. Additionally, Lee was presented with the 2006 Microsoft Marketing Excellence Award by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer – for a marketing & engineering partnership around a breakthrough market opportunity analysis process which is now a standard operating procedure across Microsoft.

Source

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2009/09/dirks]

!!! Thanks To Peter Suber / SPARC Open Access Forum / For The HeadsUp !!!

In Person > RSVP Requested / Webcast > Live at 1:15 pm ET.

EtherPad Notes

[http://etherpad.com/ULH4DIAd1i]

Twitter HashTag

[http://twitter.com/search?q=%23transcholcomm]

PostRank™ > Online Content Ranking

PostRank™ is a scoring system developed by AideRSS to rank any kind of online content, such as RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, or news stories. PostRank is based on social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant people have found an item or category to be.

[http://www.postrank.com/]

>>> Best Viewed In Firefox <<<

Examples of engagement include writing a blog post in response to someone else, bookmarking an article, leaving a comment on a blog, or clicking a link to read a news item.

PostRank measures engagement by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience's interaction with online content. An item's PostRank score represents how interesting and relevant people have found it to be. The more interesting or relevant an item is, the more work they will do to share or respond to that item so interactions that require more effort are weighted higher.

PostRank scoring is based on analysis of the "5 Cs" of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting, and clicking. By collecting interaction engagement_metrics in these categories the overall engagement score is calculated and the PostRank value is determined.

The 5 Cs of Engagement

• Creating
  The strongest form of engagement is demonstrated by using an item as inspiration to create your own, for example, writing your own blog post that responds to or refutes someone else's blog post. Creation requires the most thought and investment of time, actively generates conversation, and therefore indicates the highest level of engagement.
  
• Critiquing
  Reading a blog post and then leaving a comment requires an investment of time, thought and effort (or sometimes just typing and name-calling...), and is a form of conversation. However, it requires less effort than writing a whole blog post. So while it is an important action, it does not indicate as much engagement as Creating.
  
• Chatting
  Sharing and discussing information can often be started with one click, so it doesn't require a major investment of effort. However, a desire to share is a strong indication of relevance, and the act of sharing and its ensuing discussion are acts of conversation. Use of social media applications like Twitter encourage both the sharing of information and the resulting conversations. As a result, social media "chatting" indicates a good level of engagement.
  
• Collecting
  Bookmarking or submitting items to social sites also tend to be "one-click" actions. They are intentional acts of archiving and sharing, but don't require much time or effort. However, the sharing that occurs often sparks conversations, so Collecting does demonstrate some engagement.
  
• Clicking
  Activities like clicks and page views indicate lower engagement because they're passive interactions. Clicking a link to read a blog post doesn't require much work, and you're not giving anything back except your reading time. It is an intentional act, however, and thus indicates a mild level of interest and engagement. Which may grow after the item is read.

[snip]

Engagement Sources We Track

Engagement sources evolve as new and interesting ways of interacting with with online content evolves. Here are several examples of engagement data sources that are included in PostRank:

• Views - Real-time > Pageviews within RSS readers and via PostRank widgets


• Clicks - Real-time > Clicks within RSS readers and via PostRank widgets


• Comments - Periodic updates > The number of comments on the item


• Google Trackbacks - Periodic updates > The number of links to the item from other websites


• FriendFeed - Real-time >The number of comments and likes on the item


• Digg - Real-time > The number of diggs, and comments on the item


• Reddit - Real-time > The number of comments and votes (up and down) on the item


• Tumblr - Real-time > The number of Tumblr mentions


• del.icio.us - Real-time > The number of bookmarks saved


• Ma.gnolia - Real-time > The number of bookmarks saved


• Diigo - Real-time > The number of bookmarks saved


• Furl - Real-time > The number of bookmarks saved


• Twitter - Real-time > The number of Twitter mentions


• Jaiku - Real-time > The number of Jaiku mentions


• Identi.ca - Real-time > The number of Identi.ca mentions


• Brightkite - Real-time > The number of Brightkite mentions


• Twit Army - Real-timec > The number of Twit Army mentions


• Blip - Real-time > The number of Blip mentions


• Feecle - Real-time > The number of Feecle mentions


• MexicoDiario - Real-time > The number of MexicoDiario mentions

Source

[http://www.postrank.com/postrank#what]

FAQ

[http://blog.postrank.com/faq/]

Getting Started

[http://blog.postrank.com/getting-started/]

Press & Web 2.0 Media Coverage

[http://blog.postrank.com/media/]

Subscriptions

[http://www.postrank.com/subscriptions]

Company Information

[http://blog.postrank.com/about/]

New Journal Models And Publishing Perspectives In The Evolving Digital Environment

Cassella, Maria and Calvi , Licia New journal models and publishing perspectives in the evolving digital environment., 2009 . In IFLA 2009 : Libraries Create Futures : Building On Cultural Heritage, Milano (Italy), 24-27 August 2009. (Unpublished) [Presentation]

Abstract(s)

Open access combined with Web 2.0 networking tools is fast changing the traditional journals’ functions and framework and the publishers’ role. As content is more and more available online in digital repositories and on the web an integrated, interconnected, multidisciplinary information environment is evolving and Oldenburg’s model disintegrates: the journal is no more the main referring unit of the scholarly output, as it used to be mainly for STM disciplines, but scholars attention is deeply concentrated on article level.

New journal models are thus evolving. In the first part of this presentation authors discuss these new experimental journal models, i.e. - overlay journals - interjournals - different levels journals In the second part of the presentation authors drive readers’ attention on the role commercial publishers could play in this digital seamless writing arena. According to the authors, publishers should concentrate much more on value-added services both for authors, readers and libraries, such as navigational services, discovery services, archiving and ex-post evaluation services.

La crescita della letteratura scientifica ad accesso aperto e i nuovi strumenti del Web 2.0 stanno rapidamente cambiando le tradizionali funzioni del periodico scientifico. Il modello di Henry Oldenburg si disintegra e la rivista scientifica cessa di essere il principale output intellettuale della ricerca, dal momento che l’attenzione degli studiosi è ormai tutta concentrata a livello dell’articolo (dalla ricerca fino alle nuove metriche di valutazione).

Le riviste tradizionali conservano un valore che è legato in modo prevalente ormai all’avanzamento nella carriera accademica più che all’aggiornamento scientifico. Nuovi modelli di riviste stanno emergendo in questo contesto: gli "overlay journals", gli "interjournals" e i "different levels journals". Dal momento che il contenuto non è più il valore aggiunto di una pubblicazione, quale ruolo spetta agli editori scientifici oggi? Gli autori sostengono che il futuro dell’editoria scientifica è legato al contesto digitale ovvero all’offerta di servizi a valore aggiunto differenziati per autori, lettori e biblioteche.

Source and Full Text Available At

[http://eprints.rclis.org/16741/]

!!! Thanks To Garrret Eastmam, Librarian, The Rowland Institute At Harvard For The HeadsUp !!!

Podcast > Open Access And The Future Of Scholarly Communication

Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Dissemination, Prestige, and Impact

14 August 2009 / Dr David Prosser Director, SPARC Europe

The internet is having a profound impact on the 300-year-old model of scholarly communication. New technologies allow for new modes of interaction between researchers, and a wider audience of administrators, funders, governments and the general public. The lines between formal and informal communication are becoming increasingly blurred and publishers and librarians find themselves playing new roles in the scholarly communication chain.

One of the most powerful new ideas to emerge with the development of the internet is open access - the notion that the scholarly research literature should be made available to readers free of charge. This presentation described current developments within the scholarly communications landscape and provides an indicator of possible future directions.

This lecture was part of ... [The Austrailian National University] ANU Public Lecture Series 2009, presented by ANU Division of Information and the National Library of Australia.

Lecture Recording (MP3, 56.2MB) [01:01:24]

[http://www.anu.edu.au/mac/podcasts/Audio/Prosser_ANU_14082009.mp3]

Source

[http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/open_access_and_the_future_of_scholarly_communication/]

!!! Thanks To Garrret Eastmam, Librarian, The Rowland Institute At Harvard For The HeadsUp !!!