Research that starts conversations

Your research has been published, what comes next? Hopefully, it influences the work of other researchers and receives citations.

But citations are not the only way that research impact and influence can be measured. There are many other forms of engagement with published research, and Imperial staff and students are being offered the opportunity to try a tool that can help identify the types of conversations their research is starting.

Altmetric Explorer allows users to track an article as soon as it is published and view the online activity that is happening around it. Maybe your research has been mentioned in a Wikipedia article, a policy document, a news article, or is causing a stir on Twitter. Altmetric Explorer will find this and present the activity data tailored for your use - whether that be the entire publication history of a researcher or multiple researchers, as well as in-depth analysis of a single article.

The tool provides researchers and administrators with analysis of the online activity without having to individually search each publication and manage each online platform.

Altmetric Explorer runs text mining and automated searching of global news outlets, patent offices, multimedia platforms such as YouTube and Reddit, as well as over 9,000 academic and non-academic blogs, and more, to find the conversations happening around your articles.

Guidance on how to understand the way in which the data is collected and how it can be meaningfully interpreted will be made available to trial participants.

Between Monday 21 January and Friday 15 February Imperial staff and students will be able to try Altmetric Explorer, where they will be given full access to the reporting tools and be able to use it to discover the conversations that their research is starting.

To take part in the trial, please register your interest by emailing Robyn Price, Bibliometrics and Indicators Manager, Library Services at robyn.price@imperial.ac.uk before Friday 8 February.