Altmetrics, PIRUS and usage factor

Abstract

Scholars have moved their publications onto the web, and the ongoing conversation around the outputs of research increasingly takes place there. Beyond the research community itself, scholarly information has an impact on other professionals, as well as on the general public. Traditional measures do not reflect these wider impacts. The mission of COUNTER is to set and monitor global standards for the measurement of online usage of content. Usage is an important measure of the impact and value of publications, and as such has a role in altmetrics. Usage can be reported at the individual item and individual researcher level and aggregated to the journal or institution level. PIRUS and Usage Factor are two COUNTER-lead initiatives that are based on this approach, with the potential to provide useful altmetrics.