A New Frontier?: Faculty Use (or non-use) of Altmetrics @ UT Arlington College of Engineering

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A New Frontier? Faculty Use (or non-use) of
Altmetrics_at_ UT Arlington College of
Engineering

• by
• Sylvia George-Williams
• Presentation to the
• Texas STEM Librarians Conference
• College Station, TX
• July 19, 2014

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Outline

• Overview of UT Arlington
• Background
• Reasons for survey
• The survey
• Results
• Analysis
• Next steps

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• Overview of UT Arlington
• Comprehensive research uni
• 2nd largest in the UT System
• 6th largest in Texas
• 180 degree programs
• 10 schools and colleges
• 33, 000 students
• 120 countries

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Background

• TechnoScholar (series of workshops)
• Related to technology and research
• Open to faculty and graduate students
• Not a Fear Factor
• Impact Factor/publishing
• mainly engineering/science participants
• Focus on traditional metrics, but mention of
  alternative metrics

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Reasons for Survey

• Most important
• Better prepare for workshop
• Other
• Rising interest in altmetrics
• Conversations with new faculty
• Understand what goes on in the college

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The Survey

• October 2013
• Quick survey (survey monkey)
• 8 questions
• Department Chairs
• 7 departments (BioE, CE, CSE, EE, IMSE, MAE, MSE)
  
• Two weeks

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The ResultsResponses

• 5 returned
• BioE, CSE, IMSE, MAE, MSE
• No response from
• CE, EE

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Results (cont.)

• Q. 1. All consider impact when hiring,
• for promotion/tenure
• Q. 2. All use traditional methods
• (journal/author impact)
• None use altmetrics
• Q. 3. Zero responses to specific sources of
  altmetrics used (blogs, twitter, etc.)

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Results (cont.)

• Q. 4. How they felt about the use of altmetrics
  to measure impact in scientific community
• 60 - lower standard
• 0 - raise standard of scholarship
• 20 - provide more opportunities for scholars to
  get cited
• 40 - provide additional avenues for finding more
  articles
• 20 - didnt know

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Results (cont.)

• Q. 5. Thoughts about the altmetrics movement
• 20 - a fad
• 0 - here to stay
• 80 - not sure
• Q. 6. Use of altmetrics as another tool to
  measure
• own impact
• 0 - will use
• 80 - no
• 20 - not sure

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• Q. 7. Would like to know more about altmetrics
• 20 - yes
• 60 - no
• 20 - not sure

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Results (cont.)

• Q. 8. Other thoughts about the use of altmetrics
• perhaps more appropriate for fields other than
  engineering
• Social media insufficient for understanding true
  importance of someones research
• Ideas without true substance can be hyped
• Long-term impact and importance is of little
  interest to social media audience, but purpose of
  research is to address long-term and ongoing
  problems

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Analysis

• Mind made up about what altmetrics are?
• If Department Chairs not interested, what does
  that mean for younger faculty?
• Can Department Chairs be made to change their
  minds?
• Interest in altmetrics varies by discipline?

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Next Steps

• What should we do?
• More survey??
• Find out how other faculty feel?
• Faculty-wide survey on scholarly communication

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• The End
• Questions??

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Appendix

• List of questions asked
• 1. My department considers a scholar's impact in
  the scientific community in
•   a. The hiring process
• b. The promotion and tenure process
• c. Both
• d. Neither
•  
• 2. If your department does consider a scholar's
  impact, what methods do you use to
• measure this impact?
• a. Traditional methods (journal impact factor)
• b. The newer altmetrics (mention in social media
  - blogs, twitter, etc.)
• c. Both
• d. Neither
• e. Other (please specify)
•  
•  

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• 3. If you chose "The newer altmetrics" above,
  what specific sources do you use to measure this
  impact?
•   a. Mention in social media (facebook, twitter,
  blogs, etc.)
• b. Mention/appearance in traditional media
  (mention in newspapers/magazines, appearance
  as an expert on tv/radio shows) c. Mention in
  online reference managers (Mendeley, CiteULike,
  etc.)
• d. None of the above
• e. All of the above
• f. Other (please specify)
•  
• 4. As a senior scientist/scholar/researcher, I
  feel that the use of altmetrics to measure
• impact in the scientific community will
•   a. Lower the standard of scholarship
• b. Raise the standard of scholarship
• c. Provide more opportunities for scholars to
  get cited
• d. Just provide authors and users additional
  ways to find article metrics
• e. Don't know

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5. As a senior scientist/scholar/researcher, I
think this movement towards the use of
altmetrics to measure scholarly impact is   a. A
fad (will pass away soon) b. Here to
stay c. Not sure 6. As a senior
scientist/scholar/researcher, I will definitely
use altmetrics as another tool to measure my
impact.   a. Yes b. No c. Not sure 7. I would
like to know more about altmetrics. a. Yes b. No
c. Not sure 8. Please share any other
thoughts about the use of altmetrics in measuring
impact in the scientific community that you
think is important.