New Indicators for Measuring the Societal Impact of Scientific Publications: An Overview of Benefits and Disadvantages

Today, it is not clear how the impact of research on other areas of society than science should be measured. While peer review and bibliometrics have become standard methods for measuring the impact of research in science, there is not yet an accepted framework to measure societal impact. Alternative metrics )called altmetrics to distinguish them from bibliometrics( are considered interesting options for assessing the societal impact of research, as they offer new ways to measure )public( engagement with research output. Altmetrics is a term to describe web-based metrics for the impact of publications and other scholarly materials by using data from social media platforms )e.g. Twitter or Mendeley(. This overview of studies explores the potential of altmetrics for measuring societal impact. It deals with the definition and classification of altmetrics. Furthermore, their benefits and disadvantages for measuring the impact are discussed.