Dr. Martha Adams: Altmetrics & Exploring the Impact of Research

  • Research Impact
  • Researcher profiles

Starting in Summer 2015, Duke subscribed to Altmetric Explorer, web-based platform that allows anyone in the University community to track, search, and measure the conversations about their research happening online. The Explorer makes it possible to see who has been mentioning faculty work in major news sources, blogs, government policy documents, Wikipedia, and social media. Unlike other metrics, which are focused on the impact of a journal (impact factor, h-index, etc.), Altmetric tracks research at the article level, enabling 

one to assess the impact of one’s scholarship with a higher level of granularity.

Recently, Dr. Martha Adams of the Department of General Internal Medicine has been using Altemetric to follow her own research impact as well as those of her colleagues. “It’s really

interesting to see the uptake and interest in the media,” Dr. Adams said. “[J]ustputting ideas online gives intellectual stimulation and skills development for faculty.” As more and more substantive conversations about research are taking place outside of “traditional” venues such as journals, following them is becoming a mainstream part of academic life. Altmetric Explorer is intended to make it easier for Duke faculty members to do so by aggregating social and news media mentions of their research. Duke Libraries and the Provost’s Office hope that this tool with provide more context for how our faculty scholarship is being used and talked about online.

See Dr. Adams’ recent blog post to learn more about with the Altmetric Explorer can inform faculty about the consumption of their scholarly work.

You can read more about Dr. Adams and her research on her Scholars@Duke profile.