Altmetric

Altmetric is a one-of-a-king research data-analytics service that tracks and aggregates the online attention surrounding published research — including mentions in news outlets, policy documents, social media, blogs, patents and other web sources. It allows researchers, institutions, publishers and funders to see how a given research output (for example a journal article, dataset or report) is being discussed or shared across the internet, not just how often it is formally cited. PMC+1
Who does it serve and how?
The primary users of Altmetric include:
Researchers who want to monitor the reach of their work beyond academic citations — for example how widely their article is being covered in news, social media or policy.
Institutional research offices or libraries that need to assess engagement or visibility of their faculty’s outputs.
Publishers who embed Altmetric “badges” (those multicoloured donut icons) alongside articles to show attention metrics.
Funders or policy-makers interested in broader “research influence” or “impact” beyond traditional bibliometrics.
Key features & what it offers
The platform assigns an “Attention Score” (Altmetric Attention Score) for each tracked item, based on volume and sources of mentions.
It uses a visual badge (a donut) showing breakdown by source (e.g., news, Twitter, blogs) that can be embedded on article or researcher-pages.
The system provides tools for filtering and comparing items: you can explore which articles get more attention, which sources drive that attention, and potentially cross-compare research outputs.
Why it matters
In a research environment increasingly focused on “impact” (academic, societal, policy), Altmetric adds a supplementary view of how research is being noticed and engaged with — particularly in the early weeks/months after publication when citations may still be few. It helps capture dimensions of influence that traditional citation counts miss: media coverage, policy uptake, social media resonance. altmetric.com+1
Important considerations & caveats
An Attention Score does not necessarily equate to research quality: high social media or news attention can reflect novelty, controversy or even triviality rather than scientific merit.
Coverage may vary considerably by discipline, region and language: items in humanities or less-social-media-active fields may receive fewer mentions and thus lower scores despite high academic value.
Because it’s a commercial service, users (especially institutions) need to evaluate cost vs benefit, and check how well the sources it tracks align with their needs.
Attention scores can be influenced by social media dynamics, news cycles or promotional efforts, which may inflate or skew apparent “impact”.